I bought this today at released on digital, but had been waiting to see it until it was a good time to watch. Ended up being yesterday, before the rest of the family woke up.
This was everything I had hoped it would be without realizing what I wanted. It has the same reverent treatment of its own environment, respect for the characters motivations, and internal consistency as the original. It also nicely encapsulated how much more complicated our world has become since the original by having so many different forces at play with different and opposing goals.
There’s an obvious joke to be made here about choosing somebody with Ryan gosling‘s Limited acting range to play the kind of character he is. This was true in drive as well. Gosling is either on or off, seems to have very limited middle range. The same was true about the original Terminator movie turning Schwarzenegger into a movie star by playing to his weaknesses as an actor. Or any role that has Keanu Reeves saying “Whoa.“
I’m looking forward to watching it again in a couple of weeks after my brain has settled on bit more. Denis Villaneueve is unstoppable.