Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner has had more cuts than a Scotland supporter’s wrists.

Brace yourself: the Work-print cut, the San Diego sneak preview cut, the US theatrical release cut, the International theatrical release cut, the US broadcast version cut, the Director’s cut and the (fingers crossed) Final cut.

A long list to which a fitting response would be: cut!

In fact, the only cut Blade Runner hasn’t had which the beleaguered and bleary-eyed foot soldiers of the Tartan Army stand guilty as charged is half cut!

Though, given the combined running time of thirteen and a half hours which is on a par with the fifteen hours of Scotland’s ten qualifying games, and given the sense of déjà vu in watching the same thing over and over again ending in a familiar fade to black, you’d be forgiven for retiring to an alehouse of ill-repute to drown your sorrows in a glass half-full.

Which brings me to the first of many superlatives about director Denis Villeneuve’s (Arrival, Sicario) sequel Blade Runner 2049 which as the Ronseal-inspired title suggests is set thirty years after the original.

The running time of 162 minutes flies by like Usain Bolt with the runs. And the screenplay by Hampton Fancher and Michael Green (Alien: Covenant) and the soon-to-be-released Murder On The Orient Express) is as lean as a Karen Carpenter tribute act.

And what’s more, what grips the attention is not pyrotechnics or breathless action sequences, though both are used sparingly and as a result to great effect, but the triple whammy of character, dialogue and plot.

The latter of which is anchored around the character of K aka Joe (Ryan Gosling), a bio-engineered “replicant” who upon discovering a “box of bones” which prove to be “not born but made” triggers a futuristic version of Who Do You Think You Are? in which the hunter becomes the hunted and fiction becomes the truth – and vice versa.

Confusing? Not a jot. Mesmerising, more like. As is the cinematography by Roger Deakins who with thirteen “close, but no cigar” Oscar nominations to his name looks set to walk down the red carpet once more. For his visuals are stunning, with L.A. painted as a neon-lit underworld of hookers and hobos, which is in stark contrast to the psychedelic nirvana of the Wallace Corporation spearheaded by the ethereal Niander (Jared Leto) and his kick-ass sidekick Luv (Sylvia Hoeks).

The score, or rather the soundscape, by Hans Zimmer (Dunkirk) and Benjamin Wallfisch (It: Chapter One), both of whom worked together on Hidden Figures, is equally impressive. Ever-present, but never overwhelming. Industrial and soulless, nightmarish and bleak.

Though, without giving too much away, the film ends on a rare not of hope. The moral of which is crystallised in Lieutenant Joshi’s (Robin Wright) throwaway advice to K: “We’re all just looking for something real.”

And, of course, Harrison Ford reprising his role as the renegade replicant Rick Deckard is a curmudgeonly joy. Like Scotland’s run of victories in Group F, he leaves it late before putting in a shift; but unlike Scotland, he completes the job in a moving and “to be continued” finale.

Director: Denis Villeneuve
Writers: Hampton Fancher, Michael Green
Stars: Harrison Ford, Ryan Gosling, Ana de Armas
Peter Callaghan
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