1. Blade Runner (1982)

Leonard Maltin's Rating :
Should be :

IMDB Rating : 8.3

Rotten Tomatoes Rating : 92%

Most of Leonard Maltin's ratings are pretty consistent but this is one he has made an egregious error with. If you are supposed to be writing a book that will help people decide whether to see a movie don't you think you should have a favorable rating for what many people think is one of the best science fiction movies ever made (see IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes rating above).

In his review Leonard said : "A triumph of production design. defeated by a muddled script and main characters with no appeal whatsoever" (maybe because they were robots, which may be the point of the movie).

The Rotten Tomatoes Consensus statement says : "Misunderstood when it first hit theaters, the influence of Ridley Scott's mysterious, noir-influenced Blade Runner has deepened with time. A visually remarkable, achingly human sci-fi masterpiece."

I couldn't agree more. This movie is so good, on so many levels. Leonard needs to change his rating and his review so more people will get to see this great movie.

6 comments:

  1. I know this movie is a cult classic, but I know plenty of people who think it's ridiculous and just all around bad... and I gotta say I'm one of them.

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    Replies
    1. But those people are super incredibly mega-wrong.

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  2. It staggers me how many good movies people have missed because Leonard Maltin warned audiences away from them.

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  3. I really think Maltin should call it as he sees it. He should give people a sense of what the movie is like instead of trying to copy some consensus. Your opinion is your viewpoint, not determined by consensus. HOWEVER, when he says "main characters with no appeal whatsoever", I literally don't know what he's talking about. I keep coming back to this movie because I feel like I know these people. All the replicants are sympathetic to an extent, maybe in part BECAUSE of their weirdness. This movie does an incredible job of suggesting a life and backstory for each of the characters with just a few lines of dialogue. Certainly I can identify with Sebastian, Chew, and Rachael, and when I'm in a bad mood I sometimes feel as if I'm Deckard myself. All of these characters seem to have lives already before the movie begins. And one of the reasons the future this movie shows us is so believable, is because it feels "lived-in", like Star Wars but more so. The judicious use of found items was partly done to save money, but it makes the world of Blade Runner seem like a natural extension of our own. I sorely missed these aspects in the sequel, Blade Runner 2049, BTW. Hard for me to care about K and his desaturated, slow-moving, boring world. Since Rachael has been gone Deckard doesn't seem to have done a goddamn thing. Oh well - stick to the original.

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  4. Mister Maltin was reviewing movies for 60 Minutes. He gave this two stars on a ten star scale. I have been shaking my head on that for one for decades. As Bugs Bunny would say, "What a maroon!"

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  5. I saw this movie as a kid mostly watched it for Harrison Ford but I loved it back then it was so dark and futuristic the total opposite to Star Wars it really awakened me to the other side of what sc-fi could be ..

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