NEW REVIEW!!
A SCANNER DARKLY
(2006, dir. Richard Linklater)
Arden ♥s the movie

For those of you who love Dazed and Confused, found Before Sunrise and/or Sunset romantic, own Waking Life, and despise School of Rock, I have excellent news for you: A Scanner Darkly is awesome. Fans of Philip K. Dick and Richard Linklater will relish in this trippy, rotoscoped tale of drug addiction set seven years into the future. If the last few sentences have made no sense to you then either a) You aren't a geek and probably won't like the movie or b) You're stoned and probably will like the movie.

The visual composition of the rotoscoped envoirnment in A Scanner Darkly is very similar to Waking Life only more impressive. In just five years, Linklater and his team of animators have stretched the legs of this medium significantly. Images are sharper. The actors' expressions are less obscured. As a result, they can confidently take on a geniune narrative. (Not that listening the babblings of layman philosophers in Waking Life wasn't SO MUCH FUN!) The technique of rotoscoping, which involves drawing over a filmed image, serves a Philip K. Dick story well as his tales always toy with the perception of reality. A Scanner Darkly follows a undercover narc (played by the ingeniously bland Keanu Reeves) who finds himself addicted to a dangerous drug in an increasingly totalitarian America.

If you're just joining us from your nine-to-five job where your summer reading is your timesheet, Philip K. Dick was a psychotic speed freak who wrote copious amounts of paranoid science fiction. As someone who values quantity over quality, I am intrigued by him and consider myself a pretty big fan of his novel, Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said. As prolific as he was, Dick's work went relatively unrecognized by mainstream America until his death in 1982. Then, he suddenly became the go-to guy for turn of the twenty-first century action films. Cinematic adaptations of Philip K. Dick are usually litmus tests for directors. While someone like Speilberg can weld Dick's neurosis into his own confident creation (Minority Report and AI), Dick's winding plots can bring out weaknesses in other filmmakers like John Woo (Paycheck) and Paul Verhoeven (Total Recall). Ridley Scott's Blade Runner is considered to be the best and most faithful cinematic Philip K. Dick adaptation.

A Scanner Darkly gives it a nice run for its money though. Linklater nails not only Dick's sub-par Orwellian overtones but, also, highlights his sense of humor. Since the visual trickery of the animation can take care of all that "sci-fi/what is real?" stuff, Linklater is free to focus on what makes the film really enjoyable: The performances and the dialogue-based scenes. First of all, I was really happy to see Rory Cochrane in a film. Big fan. It was great to see all these people working again. Woody Harrelson and Winona Ryder turn in great perfs as drug addicts. It's a breath of fresh air to see these actors who have been all but tossed aside by a Hollywood that prefers Jesse Metcalfe and Kate Bosworth. Keanu is Keanu. I love him. How he's gotten this far on little to no talent is really phenomenal.

But the real jem is Robert Downey Jr.'s perf. Rattling off slang-filled monologues outlining master plans and nominal fuck-ups, Downey plays Barris, a suspicious roommate, as a frighteningly rational schizophrenic. In an example of life imitating art imitating rotoscope, Downey embodies the addict who can keep his cool. This has got to be my favorite turn from him in a decade. The last time I really lusted after him was in '97 with the quick one-two of Hugo Pool and Two Girls and a Guy.

Bottom Line: Very entertaining but culty. Not anchored in anything strong enough to appeal to everyone. Fans of Linklater, Philip K. Dick and Downey will enjoy. Also, stoned people.

Worth noting: There was this annoying guy who smelled bad at the screening who kept talking through the movie until finally someone in the back of the theater yelled: "Shut up, you aging hipster!" This made my month.

CORRECTION: Philip Dick did not write the short story "Supertoys Last All Summer Long" which was the basis AI. My Bad. Thank you to the anonymous dick!