Blade Runner 2049 is now available to download and on DVD and Blu-Ray.

Critics are going wild for Blade Runner 2049.

Days out from its worldwide release, the long-awaited sequel to Ridley Scott's cult sci-fi 1982 classic is being hailed by many reviewers as one of the best movies of 2017.

Infused with Weta Workshop creations and starring Ryan Gosling, Harrison Ford and Jared Leto, the Denis Villeneuve-directed film follows Gosling's Officer K as he discovers a dark secret that could bring an end to humanity

Harrison Ford returns as Deckard in Blade Runner 2049.

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One of many reviewers to give Blade Runner 2049 top marks, USA Today's Brian Truitt thought that if the original film popularised the cyberpunk movement, "2049 perfects it". "Super-stylish and deeply human — even with androids and holograms around — the spectacular follow-up takes the detective story of the first film and turns it into a grand mythology of identity, memory, creation and revolution."

That's a sentiment echoed by Empire magazine's Dan Jolin. He described the sequel as being "as bold as the original Blade Runner and even more beautiful". "Visually immaculate, swirling with themes as heart-rending as they are mind-twisting, 2049 is without doubt, a good year. And one of 2017's best."

British reviewers seem particularly impressed by the movie. The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw summed it up as a "narcotic spectacle of eerie and pitiless vastness, by turns satirical, tragic and romantic", while The Telegraph's Robbie Collin believed it "distinguishes Villeneuve as the most exciting filmmaker working at his level today".

Across the Atlantic, industry bible Variety magazine's Peter Debruge was equally effusive in his praise for the director, believing that he "earned every second of that [163-minute] running time, delivering a visually breathtaking, long-fuse action movie whose unconventional thrills could be described as many things — from tantalizing to tedious — but never 'artificially intelligent'."

Meanwhile, self-confessed Blade Runner junkie, Rolling Stone's Peter Travers wrote that "every minute of this mesmerizing mindbender is a visual feast to gorge on".

Blade Runner 2049 currently has a score of 86 on Metacritic (a website that aggregates ratings from well-known magazines and newspapers), behind only Dunkirk (94) and Baby Driver (86) for movies released in the past six months.

Kiwi cinema-goers will get the chance to make their own minds up about the movie which it opens here on Thursday.

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