Blade Runner 2049 is long. It is 163 minutes long, which, for a film, is too long. To put this in some sort of perspective, that is the same amount of time it would take to make 163 'one-minute microwave mug' cakes; that's how much time we're talking about here.
Now there are few people in this world who I would happily spend 163 minutes of my time with, and after seeing Blade Runner: 2049, I can safely say that Ryan Gosling is not one of them. It is too much time to spend gazing at his large asinine face as he serenely orbits the screen, confusedly gliding through whatever scene he appears to have just wandered into.
The movie is rather odd in that it is both fantastic while also leaves you not giving two hoots about any of the main characters. It shames me to say that I barely gave a single hoot at all - I did, though was promptly shushed by an usher. A lot of its faults can be traced down to one simple fact;one simple fact that has been so blatantly obvious for so long that it is almost painful that we as a society have let it go by unchallenged, and that is that Ryan Gosling has only one facial expression.
"But dear sir!" I hear you plaintively wail at your screen, "As a child, I had a treasured doll of oft-maligned, American comedic-actor Rob Schneider when I was younger, and that doll had only one-facial expression, yet I loved it very much. To me, its limited range of emotive capabilities through its face were no hindrance for the development of a deep and robust connection between myself and my beloved doll of oft-maligned, American comedic-actor Rob Schneider; so why should it be a concern for you that Ryan Gosling similarly has only one facial expression?". Well, that is a fair point, but I feel the crucial distinction lies in precisely what that one facial expression is. It is entirely possible that were his singular expression something endearing and vaguely human, my heart would sing for Mr. Gosling. This however, is unfortunately not the case.
The facial mast which Ryan Gosling has so singularly pinned his expression flag to is spectacularly irksome. It hovers uncomfortably in a murky quagmire between confusion, smugness and pure despair at all times; never quite sure what exactly he's trying to convey. It is the personified face of a sad horse with severe muscular dystrophy. It is the face of an elderly dog that has just farted without knowing it and is both confused and distraught by this new, upsetting smell. If faces could be monotone or monosyllabic it would be the face of Ryan Gosling.
Whatever happens in the film, his face remains, unflinching, impassive, a rock of certainty in the whirlwind of chaos. And it is utterly infuriating, as demonstrated in these twelve Blade Runner screenshots.
1) Ryan Gosling demonstrates that he retains some degree of control over his own eyebrows.
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2) The first of a recurring motif in these, where Ryan Gosling is confused at something below him.
3) He has literally just copied his expression and pose from the above screenshot, but in somewhere orange.
4) The classic dead-pan here, sitting equidistant between sadness, smugness and confusion.
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5) He continues to be vaguely baffled by something below him.
6) It appears someone has been so perturbed by his gormlessness, they have hit him.
7) Ryan Gosling has become so fed up with the confusing thing below him he's decided to shoot it.
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8) Ryan Gosling attempts to emulate the human emotion known as 'love'.
9) He could've just accidentally run over a dog here and we would never know.
10) Ryan Gosling realises the thing below him that was so confusing was in fact his own hand.
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11) Ryan Gosling here appears to be emulating a record producer listening, judgmentally, to some kid's mixtape.
12) Ryan Gosling's confusion at the thing below him re-emerges when he discovers he in fact has a second hand.
