(3 votes, average: 4 out of 5)
Loading …Rent Movie.com movie reviews presents A Scanner Darkly movie review a 2006 film starring Keanu Reeves, Robert Downey Jr. and directed by Richard Linklater The L.A. of a not-too-distant future suffers a surge of drug abuse involving a new ultra-addictive and eventually brain-damaging substance simply named “D”. Bob Arctor is an undercover narc leading a double life, dutifully reporting to his superiors while effectively having abandoned whatever normal existence he had for a “D” user/dealer career. But this schizophrenic situation and the drug-induced memory and concentration lapses put Bob under mounting stress. How well you respond to Richard Linklater’s A Scanner Darkly depends on how much you know about the life and work of celebrated science fiction writer Philip K. Dick. While it qualifies as a faithful adaptation of Dick’s semiautobiographical 1977 novel about the perils of drug abuse, Big Brother-like surveillance and rampant paranoia in a very near future (”seven years from now”), this is still very much a Linklater film, and those two qualities don’t always connect effectively. The creepy potency of Dick’s premise remains: The drug war’s been lost, citizens are kept under rigid surveillance by holographic scanning recorders, and a schizoid addict named Bob Arctor (Keanu Reeves) is facing an identity crisis he’s not even aware of: Due to his voluminous intake of the highly addictive psychotropic drug Substance D, Arctor’s brain has been split in two, each hemisphere functioning separately. So he doesn’t know that he’s also Agent Fred, an undercover agent assigned to infiltrate Arctor’s circle of friends (played by Woody Harrelson, Winona Ryder, Rory Cochrane, and Robert Downey, Jr.) to track down the secret source of Substance D. As he wears a “scramble suit” that constantly shifts identities and renders Agent Fred/Arctor into “the ultimate everyman,” Dick’s drug-addled antihero must come to grips with a society where, as the movie’s tag-line makes clear, “everything is not going to be OK.” While it’s virtually guaranteed to achieve some kind of cult status, A Scanner Darkly lacks the paranoid intensity of Dick’s novel, and Linklater’s established penchant for loose and loopy dialogue doesn’t always work here, with an emphasis on drug-culture humor instead of the panicked anxiety that Dick’s novel conveys. As for the use of “interpolated rotoscoping”–the technique used to apply shifting, highly stylized animation over conventional live-action footage–it’s purely a matter of personal preference. The film’s look is appropriate to Dick’s dark, cautionary story about the high price of addiction, but it also robs performances of nuance and turns the seriousness of Dick’s story into… well, a cartoon. Opinions will differ, but A Scanner Darkly is definitely worth a look–or two, if the mind-rattling plot doesn’t sink in the first time around. –Jeff Shannon
Comment by Joshua Miller “Josh”
# January 2, 2007,
“A Scanner Darkly” is, without a doubt, the most fascinating film I’ve seen in 2006. It is based on a novel by Philip K. Dick, the writer behind Minority Report. It wasn’t until watching the film that I realized how little the previews reveal about it. The previews take advantage of its unique animation and big-name stars to sell the film, it tells very little about the story. When I started watching it, I expected a science-fiction film in the vein of Minority Report or Paycheck. Having said that, I’m going to tell you, bluntly, just what this film is. “A Scanner Darkly” is a drug movie. The only thing that separates it from other drug movies is the animation and the fact that the movie actually (sort of) has a plot. The film belongs in the same category as movies like “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” and “Spun.” Not good, since the film is being put in the same category as movies like “Minority Report” and “The Matrix.” Chances are; if you don’t like movies like “Spun” than you won’t like “A Scanner Darkly.” The movie takes place in the “near future” where 20% of the nation is addicted to Substance D, a drug that produces hallucinations and split personalities. Keanu Reeves plays an Orange Country cop, working undercover, named Fred who is trying to take down Bob Arctor, a user/dealer of this drug. Problem is, Fred is Bob. His fellow officers aren’t aware of this because undercover agents, when in the office, wear a special suit which scrambles their voice pattern and, most importantly, the way they look. Between speaking to his superiors and viewing hidden camera footage that is in HIS HOUSE, Fred returns to the house and becomes Bob. As Bob, he drops D with is roommates James Barris (Robert Downey Jr.) and Ernie Luckman (Woody Harrelson) at which point the men hallucinate and spew forth their half-baked conspiracy theories. The movie does have a plot, although it kind of appears in fragments. Some parts of the movie are, merely, scenes of Bob, Barris, and Ernie hallucinating and freaking out. Sometimes with Charles Freck (Rory Cochrane), who is under the impression that little green bugs are crawling all over his body. And then there’s Donna Hawthorne (Winona Ryder, who looks hot even when animated), Bob’s girlfriend and a cokehead, who may play a bigger part in what’s going on than we’re lead to believe. This movie got mixed reviews upon its release and I now see why. The critics expecting a sci-fi film found themselves disappointed. The critics that did give this a good review, most likely, saw the film with an open mind. It’s biggest fans are going to be people who liked/loved the movies I mentioned above. The fact remains, however, that there’s no other film like “A Scanner Darkly.” The animation (which, I read, is a painstaking process that is created frame-by-frame) is a wonder to behold. I could not take my eyes off of the screen and I hope there are more movies with this animation in the future. The acting is really good and it seems like the actors were really having fun. Keanu Reeves seems more alive in this film than he does in many other films and Winona Ryder sparkles, while also showing more skin than she has in any other movie (although, I read, that her nudity was animated over her shirt). But it is Downey and Harrelson who steal the show. Their hilarious, over-the-top, campy, and (somewhat) realistic portrayals of the two drug addicts are absolutely hilarious. Richard Linklater (director of “Dazed & Confused”) has a thought-provoking script and a steady hand in the directing category. The film shows true directorial brilliance. This is a movie that you’re either going to love or hate. You’ll either get it or you won’t. I, however, think that it’s one of the most interesting, fascinating, and fun to look at films of 2006.
GRADE: A-