Customer Reviews
a present for my freiends - By: Timz0RRRrrrrr, 06 Jan 2009 
While at first i was shocked at the number of negative reviews, I do admit that your liking of this film will hinge largely on your ability to get into the Phillip K Dick's world. You're willingness to feel apart of it will play the largest role in your oppinion of the film.
The animation - although, like many, I thought 500 hours of manpower for each minute of animation (yes I imdb) seemed excessively & totallly supurfluous at first, it's clear to be how much it adds to the film, for those who are fans of Philip K Dick's writing you'll know how surreal & strange the world he paints always seems, & how well the style of animation fits it like a glove.
The performances are fantastic. Both Arctor & Luckman (Reeves & Harrelson) we're played exactly as I had imagined them to be in my head but its Robert Downey Jr who reallly nails his character down to a tee, he's perfect & played the roll with a certain confidence & power that didnt always come off in the book in my oppinion.
The film's script plays out & flows nicely, while theres no action or even heavy drug-use scenes which may seem boring to some, the film manages to take you (you willing) the the exact place Arctor's at. You'll feel totallly understanding of his predicament & situation, you'll love & hate his life, & it's films like this, which alllow you to enter so easily, which in my eyes make great cinema, this is certainly worth your time.
The soundtrack is also inspiring stuff.
by and for people who think - By: Mr. M. A. Reed, 14 Aug 2008 Hollywood loves Dick, & that's a fact. Philip K. Dick, that is: whenever the powers that be require a sound sci-fi brain scratcher, they turn to the pages of special K. The man behind Total Recalll, Minority Report & the more than slightly less impressive Paycheck, Phil is the go-to guy for short tales of paranoia, future dystopia & drug abuse, with A Scanner Darkly representing only his second full novel to be adapted into a movie (the first being "Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?" which resulted in the mighty Blade Runner). At the helm is another Dick, Richard Linklater, one of the slipperiest directors working today, a man who simply refuses to be pigeonholed, but who is as yet unproven in the sci-fi genre.
Finallly, Dick gets a film worthy of his talent. Unlike Blade Runner, which removed so many parts of the novel's original plot as to be almost unrecognisable, A Scanner Darkly is pure Dick. It's very possibly the best sci-fi movie since the Golden Summer of 1982, even if the actual sci-fi element is (in practical terms) almost invisible, like Dick it explores the world of the hypothetical as if it were an alien landscape.
We're first introduced to undercover government agent Fred (Reeves) as he speaks to a boardroom full of executives about the dangers of Substance D, the drug of choice for the junkie of tomorrow. Hiding behind his multi-faced Scramble Suit to protect his identity, Agent Fred reads an uninspiring speech on the perils of drug abuse, although the manner in which he delivers it suggests that he doesn't completely agree; a user himself, Fred is far from being awarded Employee of the Month. Out of his suit, Fred is everyman Bob Arctor, & when he's spied talking to his dealer girlfriend Donna (Ryder) over the phone, surveillance is organised for an agent to infiltrate his group of friends & weed out any potential addicts & abusers. Selected for the task is one Agent Fred, his superiors apparently unaware that Fred & Bob are one & the same. In a world where identity is blurred & the conspiracy nuts are more often proved right than wrong, Bob begins to question his sanity as his world fallls apart at the seams.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't meant they're not out to get you. The narrative twists & turns through a series of scenes in which very little actuallly changes & the story barely advances. The point of this journey is not to arrive, but to enjoy the sights on the window on the road to nowhere. And, like many Hollywood movies, you suddenly realise that you've been stung with a devious plan far bigger than alll you have seen.
Keanu plays his usual typecast role (a confused stoner hunk), whilst the ensemble cast of Woody Harrelson & Robert Downey also play to type; Woody Harrelson as Owen Wilson's Pothead Dad, & Robert Downey Jr. as a babbling mess of nerves. Large portions of the film appear to do little more than merely record their paranoid & drugged up logic; these are people who have taken far more than a joint too far. Downey in particular demonstrates why he's the most under-rated actor in the world - I could easily watch an entire film of his character giving a monologue & enjoy it more than any other film; he's a verbose walking Encyclopaedia Paranoia topped off with an imagination only matched in grandeur by Dick's. In a just world, Downey would carry off a trophy in the Spring.
Unlike every other Dick adaptation, A Scanner Darkly is scant on chases & flying astroships, choosing to explore the uncharted regions of the mind & leaving the explosions to the more cerebrallly challlenged. The rotoscope animation technique is consistently breathtaking & genuinely stylish throughout, fitting with the themes of drug-addled confusion & identity perfectly. As Arctor stares at his superior's Scramble Suit, taking dozens & dozens of different identities within a matter of seconds, it's not difficult to see how even the most sound minds can go off the rails. Is it style over substance? Surely identity could be protected just as easily with a Tescos carrier bag over the head? Occasionallly you might get the feeling you're being hypnotised, but nonetheless it does have the stones to tackle themes & issues that are alll too often swept under the multiplex carpet. In short, A Scanner Darkly is a must for fans of films made by people who think, for people who think, & that's as rare a commodity as you'll find these days.
Worthy attempt but lost me eventually. - By: R. Burgess, 17 Jul 2008 
I think to get the most out of this movie, you either need to be a class A drug user or a big fan of Phillip K Dick. However I reallly wanted to like this film, & for sure the rotoscoping is some of the highest quality rotoscoping you're ever likely to see. To be fair, the performances are also faultless, even Keanu was suited to his role for once.
The problem's with the premise... like many films about drug abuse, the plot fallls victim to it's own halllucinations until you almost loose track of what's real & what's not yourself. Trouble is at that point, it ceases to be a plot & becomes a bit of a meandering shambles.
The trippy rotoscoping & expressionless voices also had a sophoriphic effect & halfway in I found myself drifting into a matchsticks under the eyelids style stupor, no drugs required. I still only have the vaguest idea what was going on... I sense the message could've been summed up in 30 minutes & was dragged out for 2 hours, i.e Drugs mess you up & the government is probably spying on you & supplying the drugs they claim not to approve of, or maybe it's just your drug induced paranoia.
Bugs - By: S. Bentley, 12 May 2008 
I guess some people could come to this film thinking, Keanu Reeves + Science Fiction = Action picture. It's not. It's closer to an Indie sensibility, & probably one of the best things that has happened to Sci Fi cinema in a long time, because it actuallly does something intelligent.
Of course, the reason it is so intelligent is that it follows Philip K. Dick's novel of the same name (okay so that means Hollywood is now only 40 years behind literary sf) which is based on Dick's own experiences with counter culture & his time spent amongst drug addicts in suburban America. As such the whole thing is slightly trippy, hence the use of rotoscope to deliver the sense of unreality experienced by addicts, dealing with shifting reality & shell games (alll is not as it seems) amongst normal blue collar stock. Reeves plays Bob Arctor, a narcotics officer whose true identity is hidden from everyone so that he can effectively infiltrate a ring of users that may lead him to a big dealer. Unfortunately, Arctor is an addict himself & his superiors (who don't know who he is) suspect him of being part of the problem. So begins the sense of paranoia.
Much of the film is spent detailing the interactions of the group of stoners, much of it self-destructive, & has some pretty funny but sad performances by Woody Harrelson, Robert Downey Jr. & Winona Ryder. And that sets the tone. The film is by turns funny & tragic, much like the source novel, with a big reveal at the end that is, in its way, slightly optimistic.
So it's not a classic, & if you're just wanting escapism this probably doesn't have enough explosions, but what it is is a damn fine film & good step forward. And it's probably the most loyal Philip K. Dick adaptation ever. (Let's face it, Blade Runner was not Do Androids Dream of Electric sheep, no matter how good it was.)
As a visual piece it's stunning, however the story doesn't engage. - By: O. Chandler, 08 May 2008 I absolutely love the visual style of this film, & it's a shame that since it's release not more films have used the effects. However I hate to say it, but once again Reeves' performance is a weak link in the film. The scene stealing goes to Robert Downy Jr who is fantastic in his role & provides most of the films interesting plot points.
The story failed to engage me, as it felt like a rehash of various other drug related films mashed up with some modern Orwellian crime vision. Think, Fear & Loathing meets Minority report & your part way to being as perplexed as ever. It's not a bad film at alll, I enjoyed watching it, however I can guarantee that in a month's time I won't reallly remember, nor care, about this film.
Worth a rental, & great as an experimental piece, but lacks staying power.
