Movie Title: A Scanner Darkly
Genre: Animation, Crime, Drama, Mystery, Sci-Fi, Thriller
Director: Richard Linklater
Writer: Richard Linklater (based on the novel by Philip K. Dick)
Starring: Rory Cochrane, Robert Downey Jr., Keanu Reeves, Winona Ryder, Woody Harrelson
Review: In the not-too-distance future, an undercover cop (Keanu Reeves) goes deep into the drug culture of those strung out on Substance D. As he hides in plain sight among his drug-fueled friends the new narcotic quickly begins to have a literal mind-splitting effect on him. Or does it? What's real? Who can you trust? Can you even trust yourself? And what does a scanner really see?
This tale of sci-fi paranoia comes from the legendary writer Philip K. Dick who inspired the films Blade Runner, Total Recall, and Minority Report, just to name a few. A Scanner Darkly may not be as remembered or heralded as those aforementioned screen classics, but it does share the same vision of the future, complimented by its arresting visual style.
Filmmaker Richard Linklater gives the film its jittery graphic novel look with the unique animation style known as interpolated rotoscope. This entails the film first being shot digitally and then animators trace over the original footage frame by frame. It gives the illusion of a painting come to life, that's the best way I can describe it. It looks amazing! And it was the perfect way to visually tell this particular tale.
The movie does work for the most part. The visual element really hooked me. Keanu Reeves performance as an undercover cop that struggles with drug addiction and his identity were really some of his best work I've seen. Robert Downey Jr. and Woody Harrelson are fantastic as a couple of burnouts that Reeves' character Bob hangs with. They're both funny, scary, and weird as their warped their minds reveal themselves. And Winona Ryder is the hidden gem of this movie. She sweet, sexy, and sympathetic as Reeves' closest friend and love interest that hopefully sees him for who he really is.
However, the movie is rather confusing to exactly what in the hell is going on. Now, I'm not sure if it was intentional to give the audience the sense of what being on the fictional drug in film does to its characters, or was the film too close to the source material and it just didn't translate, or maybe I just didn't get it...or maybe it's all three. I'm not sure, but it was a viewing experience that I was eagerly looking forward to and did enjoy, but maybe it was a bit too smart for me.
I would recommend this to fans of Philip K. Dick, sci-fi flicks, stylish animation, Keanu Reeves, and trippy tales that seem to mess with your mind as you watch. It's not John Wick tripping balls and fighting dudes, if that's what you're looking for. It's a hypnotic tale of drugs, identity, and not knowing what's truly real.
Fun Fact: Robert Downey, Jr. wrote most of his lines down on post-it notes and scattered them around the set so he could read off them while filming a scene. The rotoscoping team simply animated over the notes to remove them from the film during post-production.