A Scanner Darkly (2006)
67 %
Reviews Counted: 165 Fresh: 110 Rotten:55 Average Rating: 6.5/10
Consensus:
A faithful adaptation of Philip K. Dick's novel, A Scanner Darkly takes the viewer on a visual and mind-blowing journey into the author's conception of a drug-addled and politically unstable world.
Rated: R [See Full Rating]
Runtime: 1 hr 40 mins
Theatrical Release: Jul 7, 2006 Limited
Box Office: $5,281,537
Synopsis: Richard Linklater's adaptation of Philip K. Dick's classic novel is a challenging, mind-bending experience that cautions about the dangers of excessive drug use as well as the government's capacity to abuse and manipulate power. Using the same interpolated rotoscoping technique that... [More]
Genre: Action/Adventure
Starring: Keanu Reeves, Robert Downey, Woody Harrelson, Winona Ryder, Rory Cochrane
Buy It On DVD
Reviews
Too talkie to be legitimately entertaining, too dark to be wholly enjoyable and too muddled to be entirely comprehensible, A Scanner Darkly stands as a creative, if unengaging interpretation of its source materia
Comment
02/28/08
Linklater may have admired the novel -- I do, too -- but that doesn't necessarily make him the ideal director for this material.
08/13/07
a trippy movie that doesn't make it easy for the audience to follow. The story is complex and confusing and theanimation keeps the viewer from entering the tale emotionally or intellectually.
07/14/07
this dystopian paranoid thriller tracks addiction in all its highs and lows, and offers a dignified elegy for its misguided casualties.
06/13/07
The movie isn't for those seeking a run-of-the-mill Hollywood film and it can't be viewed with a trace of passivity.
05/02/07
I don't think the movie will appeal to a wide audience, but I could see it becoming a perennial cult classic, right up there with Repo Man.
04/08/07
Linklater never pretends that he has all the answers, but he asks the questions in such an interesting, elegant fashion that you'll be glad you came along for the ride.
03/24/07
Has more to recommend it than arty graphics--as befits a movie made from one of Philip K. Dick's most acclaimed novels.
02/22/07
Acabando por revelar-se bem mais complexa do que poderíamos supor a princípio, a trama deste filme nos apresenta a um mundo sombrio e ameaçador no qual a máxima "os fins justificam os meios" acaba atingindo dimensões assustadoras.
02/03/07
I think this is a film that would have been more effective as live action, rather than animation.
01/18/07
Destined to become one of those movies that college kids love to rent and smoke bongs with.
01/17/07
When the film is on track, it works; when it devolves into meaningless chatter, it simply drifts.
12/12/06
A futuristic morality tale using rotoscope animation to enhance the trip effect, offering visual stimulation but not enough satisfying engagement.
11/24/06
A Scanner Darkly is funny, unnerving, astonishing, urgent. It's my kind of summertime special-effects extravaganza.
11/11/06
free-flowing science-fiction drama that moves like a cloud of ink in a swimming pool. ... while the visuals are suitably trippy, 'Scanner' is disappointingly short on drama and compelling characters.
10/19/06
As A Scanner Darkly proves, Keanu is the Coolness -- passive blankness, leaden line delivery, and all. Let's hear it for the vague blur.
09/23/06
A thing of unique beauty and free-floating menace, A Scanner Darkly is also about the transmutation of good into evil and back into good, and the willful surrender of freedom in the name of propagandistic safety and betterment.
09/17/06
Possibly one of the strangest movies ever made, "A Scanner Darkly" is worth seeing if only for the eye-bending animation.
09/14/06
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