The future isn't what it used to be

During the last fortyeight hours i have watched two popular movies from the Eighties that both fall under the soiled umbrella of noir. Angel Heart is probably the only Alan parker movie i genuinely like. On what looks like a modestish budget he creates a visually plausible Fifties America and a graphically clean hell. Mickey Rourke was once a fairly cute actor. Robert DeNiro was once able to play comedy in lower case. Charlotte Rampling excites as always in a small but integral role. CAUTION SPOILERS AHEAD. iF YOU CARE ABOUT SURPRISE DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER. Angel Heart is a demonic variant on the basic concept of Kenneth Fearing's The Big Clock and Derek Marlowe's A Dandy in Aspic with the difference that Rourke's hapless PI doesn't know that Mr. Cyphere ( DeNiro)has sent him in search of himself. Amgel Heart wears very well. I'd not have thought Parker capable of a film as modest and well realized as this.

Ridley Scott's Blade Runner, on the other hand, is a Big Deal, almost a white elephant, rereleased and rereleased innumerable times. ( The version I watched was sans voiceover. I didn't even notice its absence.)I don't usually care about the plausibility or consistency of scifi science but there's a basic error about the Replicants that must be addressed. They are not androids or robots. They are genetically engineered short action flesh and blood work machines,in other words, slaves. I think audiences were so dazzled by BR's justly celebrated rainy nighttown dystopic design of the future that they didn't listen to Fancher's script very closely.
I can't help wondering if BR would be a textbook movie if it had been shot on the early Eighties equivalent of an old Twilight Zone episode's budget so ehat we paid more attention to the words and less to the imagery. Ridley Scott is not a scifi or horror director, although he's helmed one classic in each genre. He's a hack of distinction who loses interest in a film somewhere between the last shot and the editing process. Alien, that derivative funhouse of a movie, holds together as a tale of the old dark starship and the nastiest monster yet imagined because of its superior acting ensemble and daring design. BR looks a bit rushed and hokey in comparison. Scott gets good work from his actors. Harrison Ford, that block of wood, is actually exciting in a way he would never be again. Sean Young, Darryl Hannah and Rutger Hauer as the angry trio of replicants are among the finest gang of misfits in movies.
So why doesn't it work any better?
In 1982 moviegoers were still turning up stoned out of their minds. Easily dazzled by the cheesiest eye candy, they were swept off their feet by Scott's superior set design and dank seamless vision of a sinus torturing future. Blade Runner will endure but it's an elaborate facade with a lot of insufficiently explored philosophical themes behind it. Give me Alien any day. Scary as hell with no axe to grind.