Blade Runner 1982

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: Ridley Scott created a triumph of retro-futuristic design over narrative or character richness. Read more

Michael Wilmington, Los Angeles Times: Film noir cubed, science fiction a step beyond 2001. Read more

Janet Maslin, New York Times: As intricately detailed as anything a science-fiction film has yet envisioned. Read more

Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader: Much of the film's erotic charge and moral and ideological ambiguity stem from the fact that these characters are very nearly the only ones we care about. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: Open the champagne: Blade Runner is finally just the way Ridley Scott wanted it. And it only took 25 years. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: Too bad the filmmakers didn't try to recapture the modest virtues of the Dick novel, which (despite many flaws of its own) has a humor and humanity that are nowhere felt in 'Blade Runner. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: This is perhaps the only science-fiction film that can be called transcendental. Read more

Terry Lawson, Detroit Free Press: Blade Runner: The Final Cut plays better now than ever. Read more

Amy Nicholson, I.E. Weekly: Paradoxically, Scott's crowded, misty, neon streetscape seems even murkier; fuzz I chalked up to VHS tapes is production designer Lawrence G. Paull dumping ashtrays in the air. Read more

Scott Foundas, L.A. Weekly: Mainly, the re-release is a good excuse to indulge once more in Scott's iconic and highly influential vision of a future Los Angeles choked by rain, neon and cheap pleasure palaces. Read more

Jack Mathews, New York Daily News: The opportunity to see one of the milestone visual achievements in a big hall with a giant screen is not to be missed. And even if you saw Blade Runner in a theater in 1982, this will be an entirely new experience. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: These days, it's almost impossible to find a gritty science fiction motion picture that doesn't owe at least a small debt to Blade Runner's visual style. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: This is a seminal film, building on older classics like Metropolis or Things to Come, but establishing a pervasive view of the future that has influenced science fiction films ever since. Read more

Peter Hartlaub, San Francisco Chronicle: This definitive print should be the last little push that "Blade Runner" needs to complete its 25-year journey from box office failure to cult favorite to full-blown classic. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: The film still represents the cutting edge of dark science fiction. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: There are no plot-altering additions or subtractions. But the digitally spruced print is gorgeous to look at and listen to. Read more

Richard Corliss, TIME Magazine: As a display terminal for the wizardry of Designers Lawrence G. Paull, Douglas Trumbull and Syd Mead, the movie delivers. Read more

David Pirie, Time Out: The android villains are neither menacing nor sympathetic, when ideally they should have been both. This leaves Scott's picturesque violence looking dull and exploitative. Read more

Variety Staff, Variety: A stylistically dazzling film noir set in November 2019 in a brilliantly imagined Los Angeles marked by both technological wonders and horrendous squalor. Read more

Gary Arnold, Washington Post: The contradictions that plague the movie are apparent from the outset. Read more

Desson Thomson, Washington Post: The film is great on every level: the poignant screenplay about man's futile quest for immortality; Scott's tremendous direction; the incredible, futuristic sets designed by Lawrence G. Paull, Syd Mead and others; the phenomenal special effects. Read more

Rita Kempley, Washington Post: It is, in fact, an amazingly sophisticated, sumptuously visionary treatise on the consequences of attaining god-hood. Read more