Blade Runner
“All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.”
I assume anyone who reads this has already seen “Blade Runner,” but SPOILER SPOILER just in case. I’m not treading on pristine ground here, but it’s absolutely extraordinary for a sci-fi thriller to climax with the villain speaking a line like that, just before he dies. Of natural causes! So to speak. Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer at the height of his muscled Nordic perfection) is a replicant — a lifelike android — with a lifespan of only four years. He has broken free from outer-space servitude and returned to earth to meet his creator in an attempt to extend his life. But he fails. As the genre demands, he has his climactic confrontation with Deckard (Harrison Ford), the “blade runner” contracted to wipe out Roy and three other fugitive replicants, but the fight ends with Roy simply expiring. And before he goes, he utters that bit of existential poetry — a line that perfectly sums up the themes of “Blade Runner.” Ridley Scott’s movie is a triumph of style — sci-fi layered on top of bleak and soulful film noir. With its rainy, steam-enveloped, neon-lit cityscapes, it’s a dispatch from a doomed world. The spare dialogue amplifies its feeling of loss, of lives slipping away into the void. Everyone — including, crucially, Deckard — must confront the reality of Roy’s dying words. “Blade Runner” was released in 1982, and Scott has tinkered with it frequently in the intervening years to remove unnecessary voice-over narration, punch up the images and clarify the narrative. In the recently released “final cut,” it is more clear than ever that Deckard is a replicant, too — look at his eyes. But no matter what version you see, “Blade Runner” is a watershed movie that envelops you totally in the strange, sad and beautiful world it creates.