I've never written a review on this site before, but since I've just been at the first screening of this movie at Brandeis, I feel like writing a few comments. First of all, visually this movie is incredible. The roto-scoping is a vast improvement over Waking Life (and that's on a crappy screen with the film only 95% completed.) Despite the overall dark nature of the film, the dialogue is at times hilarious, and at the screening the audience erupted into laughter several times. Now, on to the story itself. I never read the Phillip K. Dick novel, but from what I could tell, the movie stays faithful. This is not a popcorn thriller; like I said, it is very dark. As the producer Erwin Stoff said after the showing, the movie reflects the bad experiences Dick had with drugs during his life. Apparently the producers bought the rights to the book from Dick's daughters at a reduced rate because they promised to be faithful to his vision, and I could definitely see the effort that was put in in order to accomplish that. Overall, I enjoyed this movie very much. Admittedly, it was hard to follow at times. But, as with the other Linklater films that I have seen, A Scanner Darkly is worth seeing for the interesting dialogue, esoteric characters (especially Robert Downey Jr and Woody Harrelson, who provide many of the films laughs), and stunning visuals. It is not a plot-driven movie at all; the story as described in the IMDb summary, which is more or less accurate, is just a framework from which to express Dick's stark and angry vision of the ravages of drugs on society. Those seeking visceral excitement will be disappointed, but those looking for an intelligent, bleakly funny, dream-like, thought provoking experience that is incredibly grim yet not entirely hopeless, will be rewarded. A Scanner Darkly is definitely not for everybody, because its pacing and animation style are not mainstream(the same is true of its release schedule: only 4 theaters on July 7, 8 the next week, and so on). However, for fans of Linklater and/or Dick, this is no doubt a must see, and you should mark July 7th on your calendar.
Add a Review
-
flawless200330 April 2006
-
illusionation17 July 2006Saw this film today in a theater with no air conditioning on the hottest day of the year...pretty fitting for a movie about claustrophobic paranoia. I'd been looking forward to seeing this from the first time I saw the trailer. Whatever can be said about this film, there is no denying it's totally unique look. After awhile, you begin to get used to the rotoscoping and then suddenly, there will be something thrown in that will call attention to itself and remind you that you are watching animation. I am a fan of Dick's work, but have not yet read the novel upon which this film is based. Great performances all around and kudos to Linklater for his fantastic vision. The film could be considered a bit talky to the average moviegoer, but is much appreciated by fans of cerebral sci-fi. Fascinating premise is told through interesting blend of suspense and comedy. Not for everyone, but certainly worth a look. Certain to become a cult classic.
-
onepotato226 March 2009This is better than I expected; a 5 character piece that might be called Who's the Narc? But way to go at getting an anti-drug message into a movie that twenty year olds would actually want to see. I will definitely watch this again.
The morphing suit that the undercover cops wear to conceal their identities is a very well-integrated device, despite making for a lousy movie poster, that never created a single urge in me to see this. The minute it was introduced I knew the suit would involve a surprise revelation, just not this one. (Although I was grasping at it early on when I thought, "I wonder if it can also disguise gender or race...") The suit allows a female to have the presence of a male, and escape gender baggage, but has the related drawback of not letting Winona be on screen for most of "her" performance.
One needs to view no more than the preview to note the few benefits and copious problems of the rotoscoping technique; which represents something neither here or there. It solves problems of gradated shadows (always avoided in flat animation) and dynamic camera movement (ditto), but it's more like live-action than animation. It just feels like Linklater didn't think the thing was interesting enough to stand on its own. Every frame of it is beautiful, but the technique is little more than a filter you have to get past. Each frame has a paint by numbers quality and the movie avoids shooting dark, so everything can be outlined later. Some dark imagery would have helped the piece. Hair becomes particularly distracting. I immensely dislike the mangy beard that Keanu Reeve has been sporting in recent years. In rotoscope, I'm watching the movie noticing the weird, asymmetrical holes where it doesn't grow, thinking "Keanu, give it up, that's pathetic!" Watching a movie and being distracted by a beard is not good. And Winona's hair is always too much in motion. But Reeves assembles a character of some depth, and is a better actor than ever here. He is countless miles from the "Whoa..!" parody of himself.
I like Downey, but he again imposes his usual squirrelly, ironic act which is getting very old. How much do you have to loathe yourself to imagine you constantly have to be 50 percent more entertaining than is needed? And Woody Harrelson, here outfitted with a bad wig, is absolutely terrible. -
tieman6423 May 2007In the near future, the federal government has secretly gotten into the drug business because it gives them (and local police departments) an excuse to do 24/7 surveillance on the entire population. The drug in question is a new one, a powerfully addictive drug called Substance D.
A chain of drug rehab clinics called "NewPath" is exempt from the surveillance. And for good reason: they actually grow, at remote farms, the flower that substance D is made from. These farms are manned exclusively by ex-addicts whose brains have been fried by the drug, so there's no possible breach of the secrecy. It's a perfect closed system.
Drug agents at the local Orange County Police Department have figured out where Substance D is really coming from and have tried and failed to infiltrate the NewPath farms. So they come up with a plan: they will covertly program one of their narcs to bring them back a sample of the Substance D flower, then fry his brains on the drug and get him sent to the farm.
Undercover agents in this future disguise their identity from one another by wearing "scramble suits" (the reason for this is not made clear in the movie; it's because some of the undercover agents may be double agents working for the Substance D agency and hence they need the anonymity).
Bob Arctor (Keanu Reaves) is an undercover narc for the Orange County PD, under the code name "Fred." His superior is a woman named Donna (Winona Ryder), working under the code name "Hank". As part of their plan, Donna assigns "Fred" to do holographic-scanner surveillance on Bob Arctor, ie himself, knowing that this will help speed up his mental deterioration.
Outside the office, Bob believes that Donna is a low-level drug dealer and is buying from her, hoping that she will eventually reveal whom she buys from. He is also smitten with her, and they hang out as if they were a couple, but she is adverse to physical contact. She tells Arctor that this is because she's a coke addict, but in truth, she feels for him deeply, knows she is intentionally destroying him, and couldn't bear to get physically involved with him.
Arctor's roommate, Jim Barris (Robert Downey), is paranoid and unstable and attempts to frame Arctor as a "drug terrorist" for reasons unrelated to the main plot. However, this plays into Donna's hands. Eventually, "Hank" has to admit to "Fred" that "he" knew that "he" was assigning "Fred" to watch himself. "He" tells "Fred" that they were really after Barris all along, but that's just a cover story.
Eventually, Arctor's mind is destroyed, as planned. The destruction mostly takes the form of a growing inability to recognize and differentiate among people. At one point, Arctor picks up a blonde girl and, while in bed, hallucinates that she's Donna. This hallucination is repeated when he plays the scene back on the holographic scanners. (On a metaphorical level, Arctor is seeing into the reality that should have been, where he and Donna would actually be lovers in a perfect world free of evil.) Finally, "Fred" forgets that he's Bob Arctor. Donna takes him to NewPath, and he is eventually sent to a farm.
Ex-Substance D addicts are highly suggestible and ordinarily don't even see the Substance D flowers growing among the corn. But because of Arctor's training, he can see them, and he picks one and puts it in his boot as a gift to take back to his friends at Thanksgiving. The plan has suceeded.
(One of the things that will jump out at you on a second viewing is the way they program Arctor with suggestions of giving Donna a blue flower, or giving his friends a gift.)
8/10- Overly talkative and badly paced, the film is nevertheless one of a kind. A unique, psychedelic, sci-fi drug movie, the film perfectly captures the tone of P. K. Dick.
Worth 2 viewings. -
Newtbick28 January 2007The film did not set me on fire,but it did try to be faithful to the novel. If it inspires the viewer to read the book or the work/s of P.K.Dick then it has done its job. The animation format used had no influence on my viewing pleasure,it was neither good nor bad,it did not distract me from the theme of the movie. Keanu Reeves I thought was decent in the role of Bob,whether this is due to the colouring effect or not is debatable. Seriously though,Mr Reeves has a limited appeal as an actor to me,but I actually thought he did a good job. I read the book 20 some years ago and enjoyed it immensely,as always the film can never convey the entire book,but I was finally pleased it made it to film in a semi faithful way.
-
When someone on a trip starts to wig out, you take them someplace quiet and talk soothingly and assure them that everything's going to be OK. But as the tagline of this film makes clear, for these characters everything is most definitely NOT going to be OK.
For those who haven't read the book, it's important to know what you're getting into. PK Dick wrote this novel as a way of telling the story of how he and his friends in the early '70s damaged and destroyed themselves with drugs. He tells this story within the framework of a surreal science fiction thriller, but many of the scenes are straight from his own experiences with the unpleasant consequences of people using drugs and disintegrating mentally.
This film does an amazing job of capturing the feel and tone of the book as well as the paranoia, perceptual distortions, and chaos of hallucinogenic overindulgence. Add to that a story that only gradually emerges from the madness, but by the end brings in a lot of heavy ideas such as the existence of free will, whether ends justify means, etc. There is a sense of consequence to what happens in the film, a sense of despair at what has been lost. So this story of drug-addled losers becomes the story of the human struggle for identity and meaning.
I have a couple of minor quibbles regarding scenes from the book that only partially made the cut (no explanation for the significance of "If I'd known it was harmless I would have killed it myself, no little kid to explain how 6 and 3 gears means 18 speeds). Still, most adaptations of PK Dick stories take a few basic ideas and try to shape them into more conventional films that fit into established genres. Even when it works, such as with Blade Runner or Total Recall, it's not really PK Dick. Not so this film. This is PK in all his dark and perverse and deeply thoughtful glory. -
Boba_Fett113823 April 2012With the use of rotoscoping, this clearly was an experimental project, that didn't entirely paid off, by the end.
Its techniques and visual style help to make this an original movie to watch but when you look past this, the movie has little else to offer. The main story doesn't always work out that compelling, since most the time it is just meandering around and there isn't really being a good enough conflict in it story. At least not in its first half. It tries to create this but it doesn't ever get handled or developed properly enough and doesn't work out, until its last half hour, or so.
For me the movie was just too often about nothing. I know that it's supposed to about the slow descent of a drug addict, so not everything is supposed to make sense or follow a fast paced, action packed main story but surely they could had spiced up things a bit more at times, with some shorter sequences, some more interesting dialog and by letting its main characters do some more interesting stuff. Some character now instead come across as redundant ones and too many of them don't help to let its story move along.
And while the whole rotoscoping thing in this movie helps to make it unique and gives the movie a strong visual style, it was not something I was always too fond of or impressed with. Sometimes when the camera moved around the effects looked flat, literally. And besides, the whole effect looks like a layer, which you can simply apply to your movie, with any random big editing program. But apparently it all wasn't as easy as it looks, since post-production for this movie went on for 18 months.
The one thing I did really like about this movie, was Robert Downey Jr.'s performance. It was the highlight of the movie for me and the only thing that was truly fun and interesting about it. Lots of other great actors also appear in this movie but none of them works out as well as Downey Jr. did. And no, Keanu Reeves is not horrible, his character is just kind of flat but I think this was more due to its writing and directing approach, that deliberately tried to make his character one that was more of an introvert one.
An interesting movie experiment, that didn't entirely worked out but is still worth a watch.
6/10
http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/ -
Thanks to Rick Linklater and the Dick family for allowing a Scanner Darkly to re-envision Philip K. Dick's great novel without straying from its central themes and story line. Good film adaptations of literature are very often collaborative efforts between two or more artists - the writer and the director (and sometimes her/his production team). Make no mistake - A Scanner Darkly IS one of these collaborations - it is definitely a Linklater film - from the spare but very effective and hypnotic Graham Reynolds sound track to the disturbing but mesmerizing holosuit scenes and the pseudo-philosophical paranoiac banter between Harrelson and Downey's characters. In fact, I remember the last time I read Dick's novel - around the time I heard Linklater was directing this film - thinking that some of the scenes in the book could be lost in Linklater's wonderful film "Slacker".
Linklater and Dick are a perfect match.
The story is about a deep-cover narcotics officer (Reeves) who is in danger of becoming one of his own targets, since he has become addicted to a very popular and addictive hallucinogen - Substance D (AKA "Death") The cast is all very good, and extremely well suited for their characters. But here again, we are seeing Linklater's interpretation of the novel. He saw the comedic potential for the Barris character and played it up by giving the role to Downey and presenting Harrelson as a combination of loyal side-kick and straight-man to Downey's sometimes overpowering Barris.
What the story is really about is the culture of recreational drug use and addiction. Its portrayal of this is on target, and though the subject is treated with some sympathy, the contradictory messages, denials, and complex rationalizations permeating that culture also come through powerfully. In this manner, the film nails the book spot-on.
Reeves is perfectly cast as Arctur. His subtle and somewhat detached style is exactly what was needed for this complex and sympathetic character. And although some have stated that he was "blown off the screen by Downey and Harrelson" I couldn't agree less. Downey is louder and more domineering, yes, but Arctur is not a loud, ultra-dynamic, paranoid, and could not be played in a way which could compete with Downey's character.
Although I believe Winona Rider to be very talented, I had my doubts about her in the role of Donna - one of my favorite characters in Dick's novel. However, once again, Winona exceeded my expectations. I have never seen a bad performance out of her.
This is great casting, period.
While these are not criticisms, I feel obligated to make a couple of comments comparing the book and the film. First, the film is not really as dark and disturbing as the book. I can not explain why in this review - you will have to see it to understand why I say this. Second, I was very slightly disappointed by the reduced role of Donna in this film. Third - though some have commented that the film was hard to follow and that they felt they could only really get it if they read the book - I can only say that this is probably intentional. Yes, many of Linklater's films are non-linear and can be hard to follow for those who expect to have things explained to them. Linklater is, if nothing else, an artist and doesn't seem very interested in linearity or explanation. And the original work by Dick is no less ambiguous. In fact it is, in my opinion, more ambiguous.
This film does a great job of bringing to the screen one of the most intelligent and emotional works of science fiction ever written. My thanks to all involved. -
SnoopyStyle20 April 2016It's seven years in the future. The country is struggling with 20% of the population addicted to a new drug Substance D. In Anaheim, Bob Arctor (Keanu Reeves) is an undercover agent who wears a scramble suit which changes his appearance like a chameleon. The drug war is supported by private corporation New Path. Bob is himself addicted and starting to lose his mind.
This is an unique movie of an original style. The rotorscoping animation style is hypnotic. It's not for everybody. It can be maddening to watch as the madness of this world can infect the audience. It's a visually weird movie. It gets tiring to watch. It may be better as an animated short than a full-length feature. The talkative story can also wear out its welcome. -
darfoo10 July 2006Hollywood has tried so many times to capture the feel of Philip K. Dick terms of his style and writing. Films like Total Recall, Paycheck, Minority Report, all were playing to the lowest common denominator and really lost a lot of the feel that Dick conveys in his writing. Blade Runner came close, but it still missed the essential darkness that Dick brings to each and every one of his works.
Enter "A Scanner Darkly", aside from the Interpolative Rotoscoping that the film maker used to put the graphical images of this movie together and give it an amazing visual feel all its own, the vision and imagery conveyed by the film are as true to Dick's original as any movie has come. I left the theater feeling overwhelmed, touched, and changed, much the same way as when I'd finished the book. This is rare, and it is decidedly a beautiful thing. -
Enchorde22 February 2009Recap: Bob Arctor lives some different lives. In secret he is a detective under cover trying to stop the highly addictive and very dangerous drug Substance D. But in his line of work he slowly becomes addicted to the substance himself. To complicate matters further he is given the task to run surveillance on himself and his friends, this by his superiors that don't know his real identity. But nothing much is clear when everything is hidden in layers of secrets.
Comments: The first thing I noticed while watching was the high quality animation. Telling by how the figures moved and the likeness of the actors it was clear that it was based on normal film, and turn into animation. An interesting idea in itself, but also a way to more easily insert those special effects and fictitious elements that is there.
With special effects I mean gadgets and effects that are not possible today (or at all). Not explosions or gunfights or stellar futuristic surroundings that almost have come to be standard when a Philip K Dick-novel have been filmed. Of those, this film has none. Actually the pace of the story is slow, very slow. So slow that it at times quite frankly becomes dull.
Yes, it does have some very interesting elements with all the deceit and mystery. Also the dystopian view of the near future bears watching. The ideas in this story are captivating. But it is told in such a slow pace that it is sometimes easy to lose interest despite these ideas. Maybe also the choice to animate makes it harder to connect to the characters, I don't know. All I say it actually was a little dull at times.
6/10 -
Quinoa19847 July 2006It's not very often that Phillip K. Dick's writings get adapted well on to the screen. Films like Paycheck and Impostor might have there moments, but there is much lacking where high-tech action scenes and dreary direction replaces more of the thought in his work. Richard Linklater's A Scanner Darkly, however, could be part of that handful of films (the others Scott's Blade Runner and Spielberg's Minority Report) that do justice to his sensibilities as both a science-fiction spinner and social satirist. The technique he uses to add some imagination is, at first assumption, interesting but a little outdated. Rotoscoping the live action with animation has been done since the late 70's, and Linklater himself used it for maybe his most philosophically complex film Waking Life. Here though the same technique he used before is put into a narrative that, compared to Waking Life, is non-linear to the point that it is very faithful to Dick's work. But there's more than meets the eye, literally, to what Linklater is doing with his technique. It really does fit the mood of the film, one where to abscond is almost second nature, but the control over thought and the similarly powerful self-destruction comes at high prices for decent people.
To discuss the story would have to involve much explanation of the characters, who they may (or may not as case is) be, and how drugs make up the integral, damned environment. Keanu Reeves is in one of his best performances, arguably, as Bob Arcter, apart of dealing what is called Substance-D, a very detrimental narcotic that sooner or later starts to play serious tricks on a person's mind (left brain vs. right brain is in many scenes). But Reeves is also Officer Fred, who has been assigned to infiltrate a group of addicts who might lead him and his police force into the higher networks of drug distribution. Those around him in his "undercover" state are James Barris (Robert Downey Jr), Ernie Luckman (Woody Harrelson), Charles Freck (Rory Chochrane), and in one of the most crucial parts to the story Donna (Winona Ryder, quite a good comeback part). The theme of dehumanization around such technologies as a scanner in this film, where Fred/Arctor takes footage from the dingy home he usually hangs out in, are also akin to other pieces of Dick's work. I'm reminded of the tragedy in Minority Report of the cop who gets hooked on an illegal drug, and for what purpose in that story is made quite clear.
In A Scanner Darkly, however, the lines of morality are never totally clear, and the ambiguity goes along as little pieces start to fit together. While I might hold it as being one of the great Philip K. Dick adaptations, it's not to say that it is quite different from the others; this is not too far removed from what Linklater's style of dialog. To be sure to not please all in the sci-fi crowd, it's actually closer to being another of Linklater's 'in-the-now' stories of characters who talk, and talk some more, and it forces one to pay attention as opposed to having the dialog go light for more action. Downey Jr., who delivers one of the best supporting turns of the year, maybe has the most words to speak, as he's a character with few real morals but almost too much on his mind. And him along with Harrelson's character help define some of the pressing facts that go into looking at drugs in a movie. There's real paranoia, real mis-trust, a shifting of cognizance that becomes startling. One scene in particular, when Reeves is in bed with a woman and can't figure on if she is really SHE or not, and then goes over in in video, is an excellent take on the depths to which Substance-D- fictional for the film's sake but related to many real substances- and how the style connects very much so to the substance (no pun intended) in the film.
The style itself, provided by the animation directors, gives some immediate fascinations for the viewer. The whole idea of a character putting on a suit and being able to shift around faces and clothing at a second a clip provides such catching beats each time. The variations in certain scenes work very much as well. And there are more than a few instances where the style of rotoscoping itself, which makes the film seem immediately like a 'take drugs and watch this movie', is called into question. One might then ask before going into A Scanner Darkly, where the control of products that act as controls &/or inhibitors, is anti-drug or pro-drug. That I cannot quite, completely answer, though I might lean more to the former. Linklater, not just Dick, has several potent questions among others that may fizzle that are posed into the film, especially towards the last ten minutes. And what is even more surprising, and closer to being a relief, is that the film isn't even too preachy either. In fact, I was laughing through scenes in the middle bulk of the film, as Downey and Harrelson's characters made for some very sharp, witty lines and odd actions.
In short, it's got a different, 'quirky' artistry that combines some very good cinematography with so much that is tested with colors and shading and tones on the actors and settings that I will have to watch it again to take it all in. And the actors, more often than not, are completely fit in their roles, even when they suddenly reveal that all is not as it seems (I loved some of the twists that pop up). A cool premise and a superb use of abstractions as reality in the midst of the darkest satire of the year. -
Quebec_Dragon23 May 2009Let's start by saying that Scanner would be worth seeing just for the amazing visuals. The 3d graphic novel look of this movie is beautiful and original although unequal in terms of quality as if different teams worked on different parts (which is in fact the case). A very special mention has to be given to the totally incredible and unique scramble suit. The plot was quite interestingly complex yet felt disjointed at times. The dialogs which were supposed to be a highlight were sometimes suitably absurd yet not overly clever or memorable. Midway through I did feel a little bored and I had trouble caring for the druggies characters although it probably wasn't the point.
I never felt particularly emotionally involved, I felt detached (very much like the characters when you think about it). The first character you encounter (Freck) was played way too stereotypically in an exaggerated cartoony kind of way. He constantly annoyed me when he was on-screen. Fortunately, the other performances were better with the standout being the always good Robert Downey Jr. Even the usually wooden Keanu Reeves worked well in his role.
Rating: Visually, Scanner Darkly would be a 8/10, story wise it would be a 6/10 so let's average it to 7 out of 10 -
freeist28 September 2011This movie fails like an iron kite: it just has a serious design flaw. Usually I could find some saving grace about a bad movie. Most often I think I could see what the director or scriptwriter probably intended, especially when they make an effort to select rich source material, like a Philip K. Dick's most personal story, and then film it in such a different way.
That's not true here. I can't really see what Director/Screenwriter Richard Linklater intended with this adaptation. There's no spark; I can't admire anything here. It's one thing to not be impressed, but instead of wishing scenes were better, or wishing he had given the script just one more rewrite, I wish he hadn't tried at all.
Why? First let's talk scenes that come to nothing. Such as the car being sabotaged. Don't get your hopes up, it doesn't lead to anything. Or ones like the bicycle scene, where the stoner humor was so lame Cheech & Chong should have busted them. Then whimsical scenes like James Barris' (Robert Downey, Jr.) "silencer," designed for slapstick, ends with a lame punchline and also leads absolutely nowhere.
How about characters that also go nowhere? Major characters, like Ernie (Woody Harrelson), who simply drop out of the plot never to return. In his last scene, he almost died, setting up some major character conflict. But I guess it wasn't important after all. Sorry I almost got interested. How about other, purportedly important characters who seem like walk-on parts, like Winona Ryder's?
The film has no flair or style to it. When I saw the look, I thought things would bet interesting once the hallucinations started, but so little was done with the animation (except for the scramble suits, interesting for ten minutes), I began to wonder if the entire purpose of the rotoscoping was to camouflage Keenu Reeves' usual flat performance and immobile face. If so, it didn't work. He was still uninterested, and uninteresting. When it comes time for some philosophical narration, his flat voice just does wonders for it. It's like Linklater wasn't happy that I just didn't understand it, he wanted to make sure I didn't care, either.
I swear, if this movie didn't have the muddy, slapdash animation, nobody whatsoever would be praising it. It would universally be considered a bomb. The Philip K. Dick fans would be calling it a total misfire, the animation fans (a lot of crossover there) of course, would say nothing, and drug crowd (pro- and anti-) would both admit it's dull and jumbled.
I could think of only two things I liked: Robert Downey Jr's performance as Barris (though he does seem to be doing a Jeff Goldblum imitation), and a suicide scene that was hilarious. Even with the latter, though, the character offing himself seemed to have almost nothing to do with the plot. I can't figure out why he was in there to begin with.
However, those count for little in a movie that's so boring. Even a hundred minutes felt long when most the scenes seemed like they could be cut without losing anything. It's talky. There's no action. There's no chemistry between Keenu Reeves and Winona Ryder. Add to that the fact that the characters don't look real enough, and the animation doesn't make them more intriguing. It simply gets in the way of connecting with any of them.
Generally, I don't take drugs, don't recommend them, but if you're given a choice between meth and this movie, take the meth. -
tedg7 October 2008"Waking Life" was simply dumb, a collection of clever ideas or various forms ill handled. Though it was adventurous in a couple ways, it lacked the edge it could have had. So instead of changing the lives of a few people, it entertainingly mollified many.
This is much, much better. It attempts something that had structure and effect before it was a film. What it had going for it was Dick's (by now, finally) famous technique of layered observation, frangible motivation and passion. That passion was the most intense until "VALIS," and came from his own drugged life. It is a worthy book, possibly finding a new audience today with a new generation of thugs in government and drugs in life triggering newly emerging forms of paranoia.
What the film adds are some tricks that allow more literary internal dialog than is usual. I think it is simply because what we see is different enough that we allow the filmmaker more latitude than usual to extend conventional internal conventions: visions, dreams, metaphoric stories-within-stories and of course voice overs.
But there's more: It has some actors that understand the effects required. Robert Downey Jr in particular chills. This is his personal story as well. His own disaster was caused in large measure by our intrusion into his life, and having us literally watch him while the story is about being watched makes it more visceral and disturbing than the book could ever be.
The animation technique employed here works for me in all regards except one. That's because it is something still unfamiliar, between the abstraction of cartoon and the texture of "reality." The idea of pulling colors from the filmed palette is wise.
What fails for me is the cloaking device, which in the book is simply a blurring. Here what they try to do is serially overlay many visual personalities. I understand the practical reason; our eye needs to be kept busy. But it fights the terms of the alternative world they have created with the other elements of the technique, which have a calmness that we accept because it is closer to natural than artificial. It may be simply that the animators had to design roughly because of the number required, and these seem more cartoony than whatever else we see.
But all in all, I allow the deficiencies, and I suppose you will too.
Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching. -
cozmicdog4 February 2007A Scanner Darkly Explores the world of disconnection, drugs, paranoia and loss of self. It is set in the not to distant future. Adapted from the same titled book from genius writer, Phillip Dick, one would expect the same break from objective reality, dark humor mixed with sadness of existence that all his books have. This much it the movie has, but it lacks the poignancy of the book and much of the story is not clear enough for people who haven't read the book. It ends up being more on Par with Fear and Loathing in Los Vegas.
The bottom line is this is a fun movie for people who have read the book or or familiar with Phillip Dicks other writings. Otherwise I wouldn't recommend it (its too esoteric), and Minority Report and Bladerunner are better adaptations for those new to the Brilliant writings of Phillip Dick. A Scanner Darkly is is a terrific Sci-Fi Novel. -
XweAponX7 January 20071 Corinthians 13:12
"For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known".
In 1977 I was digging through a pile of books that had their front covers pulled off and thrown in the garbage. In this pile I found a book by Phillip K Dick.
That book happened to be A Scanner Darkly.
This made me pick up the book and take it home and read it. And what I read was one of the most depressing stories I have ever read in my life: I can honestly say that at the time I read it, I really did not have any idea what Dick was trying to say. But for some reason, I was attracted to the story and I read the whole book in about 2 days. 30 Years Later, I believe I understand now. Which validates the bible verse on which this whole work is based: What we do not understand will eventually be revealed to us.
Part of this film has to do with how we perceive reality, another part touches on what we do to lessen our daily pain. I really was not surprised by how the story ended. The book is not an exciting (and boring) tale of space opera, but it is one of the best works of speculative fiction ever written. And as such, it had become one of the most important books I have ever read.
And so I was surprised to find that this book was being filmed. I was interested in it when I saw that it was following the styles of such films as Sin City, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, and Linklatter's "Waking Life" - However, I did not know how deep the animation well was.
As I watched this story unfold, I saw that this film used more of Phillip K Dick's actual dialog than any other film based on his works. As I kept watching, I understood that the story that was filmed was almost exactly the same story I read 30 years ago. No gunfights, explosions, or chase scenes were inserted. There is only one large liberty Linklatter took with the story: It is at the end of the film, I do not think Phillip K Dick fans would mind this small liberty taken. I can't say what it is, due to it being a spoiler.
If anyone is scratching their head after seeing this film, they ought to avoid films with substance and go back to the Phillip K Dick books that have been destroyed: Bladerunner, Total Recall, and Impostor, which bear little or no resemblance to the original books and short stories they were taken from.
I always judge movies on their Honesty. This one is an Honest movie. The story it tells is a hard one to swallow: Do you believe in what you see, or do you see what you believe? Where does reality divert from hallucination? Although this film deals with drug use and abuse, it also challenges our perception of what is going on around us.
The animation is something else: It is a marvel. I was surprised to see how it was done, each frame animated by hand. If any other story was being told, this would not have worked.
Coming back to this comment after a couple of years, there is really nothing else I can add to this comment. This film is visually well done, which allows the viewer to absorb the story that is being told. -
Buddy-5124 January 2007Like most works by the late Phillip K. Dick, "A Scanner Darkly" provides stinging social commentary embedded in a deeply disturbing vision of a dystopian future. Based on some of his own experiences with drug addiction and rehabilitation, Dick's 1977 novel tells the complex tale of a man who, through an illicit drug he is taking, becomes a split personality, with one half of him being an addict and the other half being a narc - but with neither half aware of the other half's existence. If that sounds like a bit of a "head trip," that is clearly Dick's intent here, for what better way to capture the dreamlike and hallucinatory nature of psychedelic, mind-altering drugs? And what better way for a filmmaker to reproduce that effect on film than through the technique known as "rotoscoping," in which live actors are filmed doing their scenes, then later drawn over and turned into seamlessly flowing animation? This is the style made famous in the 1980's with the A-Ha video "Take on Me" and Linklater's own full length feature in the '90's, "Waking Life." In the case of "A Scanner Darkly," especially, its use results in a perfect marriage of form and content.
In this prescient tale set in the "near future," Keanu Reeves plays the undercover cop, Agent Fred, who, under the pseudonym Bob Arctor, is sent to live in a home with several known drug addicts: Barris, played by Robert Downey Jr. and Luckman, played by Woody Harrelson. When Fred begins taking the newly fabricated drug known as "Substance D," which causes the two hemispheres of the brain to disconnect and go to war with one another, Fred/Arctor becomes essentially two distinctly separate persons, so that, in his capacity as an undercover agent, he is actually spying on himself without realizing it. Winona Ryder appears as Donna, the beautiful but sexually frigid coke addict who becomes Arctor's girlfriend.
"A Scanner Darkly" is an easy film for a viewer to get lost in, so it pays to know a little something about the story before heading into it. As a screenwriter, Linklater captures the woozy insubstantiality of the drug experience well enough but often at the expense of narrative consistency and coherence, especially for the uninitiated. I'm afraid lots of people may become frustrated and confused near the beginning and simply tune out. That would be a real shame because the movie turns into a darkly fascinating rumination on the effect drug use has on the mind, while at the same time raising the ethical issue of just how far the government should go in "sacrificing" innocent victims to achieve a desired, perhaps even laudable, end. At times the movie may seem to be playing both sides of the drug-war fence, yet the sophistication and complexity of Dick's vision keeps it from becoming either an anti-government screed or an anti-drug diatribe.
Some of the dialogue comes off as corny and over earnest, but much of it is incisive and darkly humorous, with Barris and Larkman, in particular, hitting delicious comic heights in their paranoid/delusional ravings and interchanges. -
jaredmobarak22 July 2006What if the government turned one of its own into that which it serves to rid society of? If it enlisted anonymous employees for a mission, while necessary, that called for them to turn their recruit into an addict? The only way to infiltrate an illegal operation is to send one of its own inside. One sacrifice needs to see darkly in order for humanity to one day be able to see clearly again. A Scanner Darkly is a dark and personal descent into hell. Set in a not-so- distant future, our players are constantly under surveillance in order to capture those who are corrupting the world with the drug Substance D. We are thrown into the underground to see first hand the destruction of humanity, one delusion at a time. Science fiction has never been better and a story by Philip K. Dick never adapted so intelligently.
I have seen many Dick adaptations to film over the years, the favorite being Ridley Scott's artistic and intelligent Blade Runner. Not until now, however, have I really wanted to go straight to the bookstore to pick up his entire catalog of novels. Never having read his stories I wasn't sure what his tone really was. Minority Report was a good film until the tacked on sappy ending that only Spielberg can do, and Paycheck was a dismal waste of time. But then you have the dark despair of Blade Runner and the corruption of Total Recall, two movies which succeed greatly in my mind. After watching Richard Linklater's adaptation of Darkly, I have to believe the heavy, cynical outlook on life is what Dick does and have to wonder whether the two failures changed his stories to go mainstream (which wouldn't surprise me in the least). His works need independent visionaries like Scott and Linklater to say screw the mainstream, we need this story to go out right.
We are introduced to Keanu Reeves character, after the credit sequence, and learn that he is a government agent working to stop the distribution of Substance D. Like the others in his job, he must wear a scramble suit to conceal his identity on the job. This suit makes it impossible to know who the agent really is. When off the clock, they actually are junkies themselves, infiltrated into the culture to play the addicts off each other and get a big arrest. Reeves is perfectly cast as a man of principles who has slowly gone off the deep end into psychosis. He recalls to himself the wife and children at home, while at the moment he is a low-life named Bob Arctor, living with his user friends/suspects. Only Keanu can pull off the heady aloofness needed when he is assigned by his boss to watch Arctor, (yes, himself), to see if he slips and can be arrested. His employers know he must be in that circle of people, but there is no way of knowing which one he is, making this seemingly ludicrous assignment possible.
While Keanu's split personalities drive the plot, his friends make the ride enjoyable. Robert Downey Jr., Woody Harrelson, and Rory Cochrane are hilarious. The three are in a permanent state of delusion, leading to paranoid inferences and activities. No one besides Downey Jr. can stop on dime and go off into tangents and unintelligible brainstorms when provoked by his own thoughts. The rapport between this crew is amazing and they play off each other brilliantly. Even Winona Ryder does an admirable job as Arctor's girl/dealer Donna. She plays a junkie on D, but with a heart. Her character allows us to see deep into Reeves' character emotionally. A side effect of D for females is the shutdown of the sexdrive; the utter disgust at being touched affectionately. We are shown the feelings that Donna and Arctor have for each other that can never be fulfilled. Hopefully her shoplifting hiatus has come to a close and Ryder follows this comeback with more roles in the future.
The story runs at an exciting pace, keeping you on the edge of your seat to continue through and find out Bob Arctor's fate. Will he be arrested although he is taking surveillance of himself? or will he be able to find a bigger fish to fry while making his cover and descent to hell mean something? The layers Linklater has sewn together here are all superimposed on each other to great effect. The language has many quotable passages that you can almost feel are Dick's words, and for this I commend Linklater for the courage to stick to the real heart of the story. I almost don't have to mention the rotoscoping effect used, similar to the director's previous gem Waking Life. Without the freedom animation allows, the movie could not have been as successful as it is. I applaud all involved as this journey continues with its laughs and tears all culminating in the heartbreaking finale, that when looking back really is the only way it could have played out. Also, it was a very nice touch, before the credits, having Philip K. Dick's memoriam for all his friends that had died or suffered immensely from the effects of drugs. A Scanner Darkly tries to give meaning to their descent and a glimmer of hope for the future to one day rid itself of the voluntary plague. -
People like to throw around words like "auteur" and "art film" and all that, but it's important to remember that Richard Linklater isn't, and neither is this film. Remember, this is the guy who brought us "Dazed and Confused," "The Newton Boys," and "School of Rock." He is far, far from an artist. He's only ever pointed the camera at the actors, and added a fair-to-great soundtrack.
With the name Phillip K. Dick all over the publicity, I eventually caved to check "A Scanner Darkly," primed for a trippy experience. And so, once again, was I underwhelmed. It's Linklater, after all, so all he did was... point the camera at the actors, and add a fair-to-great soundtrack (depending on your feelings about Radiohead, the sole band that you'll be hearing).
With the animation technique, I expected it would somehow tweak itself throughout the film-- that it would lend something to the story, that it would take the visuals someplace they wouldn't ordinarily be able to go with conventional 2-D actors. And... it doesn't. There are the "scramble suits," which are extended special effects, but that's it. A character turns into a bug during a drug trip sequence (it's been done, see "The Naked Lunch"), objects appear and disappear. There's no need for this animation; it's a gimmick, a way to cover up the green screen technology that was used far more effectively in the underwritten "Sky Captain" and the under-directed "Sin City."
The story of "Darkly" seems to concern one Bob Arctor, drug user by day (or is he?) and narcotics officer by... er, also by day (or is he?). When everything is revealed at the end, it's inconsistent with what came before... the novel seems to place focus on the drugs and how they affect Arctor, the story seems to want to be his journey down the drug-induced path. The film doesn't know where its focus is, as it glances over important aspects of Arctor's life (how he became a narcotics officer, or any aspects of his personality, for that matter), dutifully shooting scenes in the book but giving them no context-- this is merely "Dazed and Confused" all over again, with some great actors but no point, riffing from scene to scene until we're just out of story to tell.
There are better drug movies out there, better Phillip K. Dick adaptations, and better Richard Linklater movies. I didn't wholly dislike "A Scanner Darkly," but neither can I recommend it. When some filmmakers make experiments, the result can be quite interesting. This one just kind of lays there, begging to be understood, but with not enough depth to really be a comment on anything. If drug use is this boring, no one will ever do them again. So the movie isn't a total waste. 6/10. -
Chris Knipp11 July 2006This most faithful rendition on film of a Philip K. Dick story (of eight so far) is both Richard Linklater's homage to Dick and Dick's homage to himself, his wife, and his friends who were brought down by drugs. Sporting a fine cast whose members themselves have excellent drug credentials, "A Scanner Darkly" moves from the sheer wonder or tsk-tsking of tales like Jonas Åkerlund's "Spun" or Arnovsky's "Requiem for a Dream" toward the supply-demand-punishment nexus relentlessly limned by William S. Burroughs.
Burroughs' sexually outrageous phantasmagorias have seemed unfilmable, though Cronenberg gave "Naked Lunch" a good try; but his ideas are clear: the future moves toward totalitarianism, and drugs are an excellent way of controlling masses of people. If they're addicted, they're your slaves; you've got their minds, and you've got their money. If you've got them hooked on something illegal, you've got a nation of outlaws, and hence a police state. But as Burroughs said, it's covert -- though America's huge prison population is increasingly visible. The world becomes one big sting operation. In "A Scanner Darkly," the rulers conceal and rip up identities at will and in the end nobody's safe, but everybody's too wacked-out to care. Except we care, and the movie is trippy, funny -- but also sad.
Linklater ingeniously uses rotoscoping (found also in the director's "Waking Life" and a segment of Von Trier's "Five Obstructions"), a complicated computer imaging technique that gives filmed people an overlay of shaky hand-drawn animation -- or, in this case, a crazy web of drug-induced (or governmentally imposed) illusion hovering on the surface of everybody's appearance.
Darkly is set seven years in the future, but the images are rich brightly drab Seventies Orange County grunge. Dick's story is as much rueful reflection as sci-fi. It's also comedy, as drug stories often are are, the manic nuttiness embodied in Rory Cochrane as Freck, who imagines himself covered with bugs (rotoscoped all over him); Robert Downey, Jr. (who surely knows whereof he speaks) as the motor-mouthed, jumpy, manipulative Barris; and goofy loose canon Luckman (Woody Harrelson), who might get violent or who pass out any minute, you don't know which. These represent Dick's immediate circle of trusted friends. Or they were trusted. Now addiction to big red pills of an amphetamine-like super drug called Substance D (evidently produced by the same encompassing structure of exploiters that hunts down its sellers and users, whom it infiltrates) has turned them manic and paranoid. The system is eating its tail: the War on Drugs is part of the drug business. "The junk merchant doesn't sell his product to the consumer," Bill Burroughs said, "he sells the consumer to the product." The matrix feeds equally well in all directions. People are bugs stuck in the honey-pot.
Exploiter and victim at the center is "Matrix" alumnus Keanu Reeves as Bob Arctor -- friend, doper, and covert agent for the company -- whom however the company is seeking to destroy. He hangs out with his friends and then goes to work and watches scanner images of himself with them. No wonder he knows less and less who he is. Even the corporation he works for doesn't know, though it increasingly suspects, which one of the household he's watching on the scanner he is. Agents of the corporate system that binds the nexus together, such as Arctor, "Fred" to the company, wear a shape-shifting "scramble suit" coating when meeting with their bosses that hides their identity from everyone by making them assume dozens of fractional identities every minute, changing outfit, face, and sex with the flickerings of the rotoscope images. But the flickerings on the people all the time show their heightened but fragmented perception and the splitting of their identities. They're pretending to be who they don't know they are. Luckman tells about a famous imposter who decided the best scam would be to pretend to be a famous imposter. The world of "Scanner Darkly" is like your mind on drugs such as marijuana: you struggle to grasp an idea and when you've almost got it, you forget what it was you were struggling to grasp. The movie captures that -- more than once.
Its look is trippy, and though less spectacular than some, this is one of the greatest drug movies, not only because of the intense visuals but because the Dick of this story and Linklater himself are both master delineators of drug thought and drug talk. As in "Spun," linear logic or tidy structure are inappropriate. The movie is episodic and just ends. Highlights are Barris'/Downey's conversation and the friends' argumentative analysis of situations when a bike is found or a car breaks down on the highway. Dick and Linklater capture the hilarity of drugged friends comically bonding at cross purposes with each other, their bicker/banter. But, not atypically for far-along druggies, there's no sex: Donna (Winona Ryder) can't bear for her boyfriend Arctor to touch her. "Fred" (Arctor) is periodically hauled in for testing. They know he's addicted to the stuff he's supposed to be investigating and can see the two hemispheres of his brain aren't working properly any more. It may be Arctor signifies a man at war with his inner Addict. Some reviewers complained about press screening walkouts or inability to follow, but the San Francisco third day audience was warmly appreciative. Dangling abrupt ending? Perhaps, but the key to the treasure is the treasure: getting there is half the fun. Linklater fans, of whom I'm one, must not miss this movie, and it's not just idle play. Nor is it coincidental this came out at Cannes with his other film, "Fast Food Nation." Both are calls to arms that speak to twenty-first-century America. The food industry, the war on drugs, the war on terror are all means of exploitation and repression. Dick's nonsensical word play and Linklater's current film-making are dead serious, and world class American art. -
siderite19 December 2006I would have rated it 7.5, though 8, but I think that the digital effect applied on the whole movie damaged it, rather than improve it. I mean, it is obvious that people are playing in it, the crayon effect feels like someone played in Photoshop.
The plot has the definite mark of the paranoid/on drugs writer Philip K. Dick. I can't say a lot about it without revealing the twist at the end, suffice to say that we are talking about a police state that people still perceive as democratic, drug addiction like a plague (over 20% of active population) and identity and privacy issues taken to extreme.
Bottom line, it is worth the watch. It's a must for SF fans. If you liked Blade Runner or Donnie Brasco (you will know what I mean once you've seen the film) then you will love this one. -
roarkish12 July 2006I am not a huge Linklater fan. His films usually give me a good laugh(Slacker, Dazed and Confused) or they present interesting concepts that will stir up good conversation(Waking Life) or they are for children(School of Rock). I don't consider him a great filmmaker but I would consider him an interesting storyteller and probably a great guy to talk to.
A Scanner Darkly changes everything. Even though Phillip K. Dick wrote it, Richard adapted the screenplay perfectly. I found that the film ran like a combination of Tarantinoesque chronology(Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs) and a Nolanesque confusion(Memento). The rotoscoping animation was used perfectly to highlight the cinematography. I left the theater with a sort of David Lynchish feel(Lost Highway, Mullholland Drive) but the plot lines were actually sewn up more neatly.
Having seen the film only once, in no way am I saying that A Scanner Darkly compares with the films I've mentioned, but with multiple viewings I am guessing that I may rank it somewhere close.
I can certainly see how someone that has never taken any psychedelics or ingested any type of psychotropic substance might feel less enthusiastic about some of the themes but I can't see them denouncing the film for that reason.
If you have ever gone on a "trip" then you will be instantly able to relate to some of the particular scenes.
I thought that everyone acted brilliantly in their particular roles. Keanu's agent should win some sort of award. Mr. Reeves is not in any way a credit to Shakespeare but his agent always seems to find certain roles that suit Keanu's tendencies.
I think it is undoubtable that this film becomes a cult classic. I hope it fares well at the box office because I would like to believe that the world is starting to appreciate good film more than it has of late.
If you enjoy a good "mind-bender" of a film that doesn't stop resonating in your head until days after you have seen it, then A Scanner Darkly is for you. If you go to the theater simply for spoon-fed entertainment, see this film anyway and hopefully you will wake up and have an original thought some time soon. -
mosheq20 July 2006In short, it's a drug movie. For over half of the film, there's little interest beyond the overcharged rants and paranoid banter of Downey Jr.'s and Harrelson's drugged out characters. With too little direction toward any real story development for the bulk of the movie, even these comic episodes, the greatest asset here, begin to feel something like a formless goo. It's like hanging around junkies without getting high yourself. A little amusing, a little tedious.
As a matter of physical and mental relief, you're quite happy to get the twists near the end (ah, so this is the story!), but at the same time you feel cheated for having had to wait so long to get there. -
MadWatch13 June 2007***Spoilers Warning*** The story: In the near future, police are trying to trace the origin of a narcotic called Substance D, which ultimately destroys the persons brain. Bruce is an undercover cop, who goes by the name Fred, sent to infiltrate a small group of substance users (undercover as a fellow user called Bob Arctor) in order to get more information from Donna, who is a drug supplier. During his mission, Bruce/Fred/Bob gets hooked on the drug as well, as he pals around with his 'buddies'. Drug users can go to a rehab place called New Path and live out their lives, if they are too far gone. After Fred has gone to far and his brain is deteriorating, he is sent to New Path. Now we find out, at the end of the movie, that his supervisors planned this and secretly manipulated him to this point so that he could enter New Path, whom the police believe are the ones actually creating the narcotic.
The story sounds interesting, however the movie has many huge flaws: 1) It takes 70 out of the 90 minutes to get to the point. The first 70 minutes are almost all about "Bob Acrtor" undercover and just 'hanging around' with his drug user buddies as they philosophy about life, bicycles and who is 'out to get them'. At the 48 minute mark, I actually said aloud to myself, "What is the POINT of this movie?" This movie was like a 22 minute Twilight Zone episode, or even a 45 minute Outer Limits episode, that was 'padded' to a 90 minute movie.
2) There was no point to the animation, whatsoever. The whole movie could have been done as straight live-action.
3) There was no point to the "scramble suits" whatsoever. It seems like the whole reason for these suits would be so that no one would know (till the end) that "Freds" supervisor was really Donna (or vice versa) or that the supervisor would not know that they were putting Fred on a case to spy on himself. This could have been handled with a *much* simpler excuse, without resorting to ridiculous sci-fi gimmickery.
4) The movie is presented as a sci-fi, "rubber reality" type of movie. However, if you remove the "scramble suits" and used live action instead of the distracting animation style, this would have been just a normal, drama movie. Nothing else.
Some people may say that "I just don't 'get' it". No, I understand the movie completely. If there is still something that I do not 'get', then it is the movie producers fault, not mine. Those that rated this movie highly because they found some sort of "philosophic" and deeper meaning is because they WANTED to find a deeper meaning to the movie.
I rated the movie 3 out of 10. It was boring, took a long time to get to the point, but was interesting to a degree.