Just as Villeneuve did with his previous feature, 2016’s “Arrival,” whose piercingly emotional core elevated its pulp alien-invasion premise, in “Blade Runner 2049,” he subverts the genre in favor of a rich inquiry into the nature of the soul itself. But then, “Blade Runner 2049” could hardly be considered a conventional example of the style, using its obligatory blaster-pistol shootouts and gymnastic hand-to-hand combat (nods to the original) to lend excitement to its more profound philosophical agenda - aided by Benjamin Wallfisch and Hans Zimmer’s atmospheric score, which features a few nice synth jazz stretches, but leans more on bass-vibrating Dolby flatulence than what might typically be called music. Those are not necessarily the colors one associates with film noir. Together with DP Roger Deakins (in the most spectacular of their three collaborations) and a gifted team of design artists (led by “Spectre” production designer Dennis Gassner), Villeneuve offers a bracing vision of where humankind is headed, iconically lit in amber, neon hues and stark fluorescent white. Make no mistake: Whereas the original “Blade Runner” was (eventually) embraced for its unrealized potential, its sequel ranks as one of the great science-fiction films of all time. Following that thread to its natural conclusion, Villeneuve has crafted a slick, 21st-century Pinocchio story, in which a replicant yearns to be a real boy - although that’s just one facet of the film’s many dimensions.

Dick’s speculative-fiction novel, “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” (four of which suggest the director himself didn’t quite recognize what was most fascinating about his own film), Villeneuve gets it right on his first attempt, operating from the premise that when androids dream, their innermost desire is to be human. Whereas it took five different versions for Ridley Scott to satisfyingly answer the question raised by Philip K.

Bladerunner carla juri