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Orion59
Reviews
A Scanner Darkly (2006)
Excellent -- the most faithful Phillip K. Dick film adaptation to date
This film was released with virtually no publicity and had the incredible bad luck to be released on the exact same day as PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MAN'S CHEST. It is a *very* faithful adaptation of Philip K. Dick's classic sci-fi novel of the same name which does not stray from the book's plot and characters at all and uses lots of dialog straight from the printed pages. A truly noteworthy effort.
Dick's complex and paranoid story of an undercover narcotics detective in the near future being assigned to spy on and report on *himself* (in his undercover guise) is more germane to today's world than it was in 1977 when the novel was first published. It takes place in a world where widespread public video coverage, facial recognition software and constant surveillance are near-universal and the authorities are running wild in their latest "war on drug terrorism", trying to stamp out a new hallucinogen called "Substance D".
A SCANNER DARKLY has an wonderful cast: Keanu Reeves in the lead, with high-energy supporting performances by Robert Downey Jr., Woody Harrelson and Winona Ryder -- all of them playing the undercover Reeves' stoner friends.
But here's the catch: The director took their live-action performances and then revived the old rotoscoping technique to turn his footage into an animated film (!). Although rotoscoping has been discounted in this age of high-end 3D animation, in this case it is used with great artistic flare. No attempt is made to make the results look "realistic" -- instead you get a surreal and impressionistic vision that really works well with the subject matter. But at the same time, they were careful not to overlay the actors faces with excess graphic work, so that the performances of Keanu Reeves and the rest of the cast come through very strongly -- perhaps even stronger than they would have if they had been presented as live-action.
It really is a superb film that clearly went over the heads of the studio execs, the distributors and the theater owners. And of course, it was up against the most financially successful blockbuster since RETURN OF THE KING and TITANIC, so it never had a chance at the box office, which is a shame. It has plenty of wild and funny moments along with the weird, quirky and dark paranoid scenes. It has now gone to DVD and hopefully will make some well-deserved additional money for the producers as it gains cult status -- which I have no doubt it will do, now that it is available to be seen by a much larger audience. Highly recommended, but expect to give your eyes and brain an enjoyable workout.