Pun Salad

When this DVD showed up in the $5 bargain bin at Wal-Mart (no, I'm not kidding), I snapped it up. After all, it got a studly 92% on the Tomatometer, and the IMDB folks have ranked it number 96 (as I type) on the top movies of all time. It's a blending of two genres I revere: science fiction and film noir. It stars Harrison Ford, one of my all-time favorites. It has a obsessive fan website devoted to it (which you should really check out, by the way, if you're interested in (a) the movie, or (b) the heights to which obsessive fans can go). And yet …

It's kind of dull; I had to start it three times before I watched it through without dozing off. It's heavy on symbolism and ambiguity, which I don't appreciate. The hero isn't very likeable or even understandable (which relates back to the movie's ambiguity on a key plot point, no spoilers here, but if you don't know about it by now, any of the links above will tell you). The acting is flat as a pancake, save for Rutger Hauer.

I should mention some positives, too. The movie impressively depicts its near-future dystopia. The "director's cut" version I got has dropped Ford's droning voice-overs and sappy ending seen in the original release. So that's good.

And, yes, I really did watch this movie on Christmas. Talk about incongruity!