Movie was too focused on the depth of its own plot. The first scene of the movie was great, right away it got rid of my apprehensions toward Gosling being the lead, because first it didn't make him into a good guy, and second it gets rid of the "is he a replicant?" thing right away (for a time anyway). Things start to go down once Wallace comes into the picture.
I really wish we had stuck to Gosling being a detective, and more in-city interactions with people. I liked when he got the wooden horse analyzed, when he met Gaff, when he searched for the horse when checking on whether or not his memory was real. Him being a detective. I think him looking for the child and increasingly thinking it might be himself while mowing down replicants in cold blood would have been so much better. I really liked the oppressive feel when the system checks on him still being "on the line".
It really should have kept things simple. The movie was really at its best when the character was being cold, killer-like, humanity-less, and questioning himself not as a result of talking with others but just as a result of looking for the child.
Get rid of the digital girlfriend focus, make her backdrop comic relief he doesn't actually have feelings for, just a dumb personal assistant he got himself, a little quirk about his own character. Her saying let's read this book, and then saying let's not was what this character should have been all about. Just a dumb program to have a bit of humor. Heck have Joi report him when she realizes he's not going back to work, reading him his user license agreement while the cops are trying to bash the door open or something.
Wallace was such a sore point. Tyrell had so much less screen time yet remained so much more interesting and less stereotypical.
It never says they think Rachel is special in a way that they too might be. For all we know they just want to find out how a way to reproduce, I mean really they can't really imagine it takes a secret kamasutra position to get it to work, otherwise they would focus on Deckard too. It never negates their ideals at all, and the movie repeatedly barged in K's head that he must die for a cause because that's the human thing to do. Rachel was special, both sides want the child to figure out the same thing.
He was a decoy. Gaff makes a bull, he's a "
red heifer", something Wallace and co. are trying to get but can't get their hands on the real one.