In 1982, film writers Hampton Fancher and David Peoples created a fascinating film about bioengineered humans.  This movie, titled Blade Runner, captured the imagination and the attention of audience after audience by ingeniously depicting a captivating future of synthetic humans and the conflicts that arise with a society integrating both humans and these replicants.

Recently, Hampton Fancher has returned to the scene with a new partner, Michael Green, to write a sequel to the original Blade Runner, known as Blade Runner 2049.  This new motion picture, directed by French Canadian film director Denis Villeneuve, takes place in 2049 in the city of Los Angeles, 30 years after the original Blade Runner.

The story revolves around a bioengineered replicant known as K, played by Ryan Gosling, who works with the Los Angeles Police Department as a Blade Runner.  The operations of K and other Blade Runners is to hunt and retire, or eliminate, any outdated bioengineered humans, known as rogue replicants.

On one of his missions to retire a rogue replicant, K finds the remnants of a different rogue replicant who showed signs of having children with a human, something that, if it became common knowledge, would start a war between replicants and humans.  As K undertakes the new task of removing all evidence of this half-human half-replicant, he makes unbelievable discoveries that not only challenge his ability, but challenge his ideals and his very identity.

The personal challenges that K faces during his journey throughout the movie create character dynamics and develope a main message of the film that really brings the science fiction world to life.  As the plot unfolds, the question of “What defines humanity?” rings through the entire story as K attempts to discover who he truly is.  Fancher and Peoples use this intrapersonal conflict to uniquely develop K’s personality and emotions.  They also use this conflict and the information that K uncovers as a premise for the creation of this sci-fi world the replicants and humans lives in.

Along with the dynamic characters and the captivating fantasy world, the movie is also incredibly enthralling because of how well suspense is created by the exceptional acting, nail-biting plot twists, and the immersive sound track that all combine together to keep the audience at the edge of their seats.

The movie has a complex plot that is based around the original Blade Runner, so viewers might occasionally struggle to understand everything.  A lot of the context for this movie is gained by having seen the original movie.  As the pieces of the story fit together, however, the complexities of the characters’ motives and discoveries make complete sense and bring the story to life.