Plantiana Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.

Phonearl Good start, but then it gets ruined

Catangro After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

Mehdi Hoffman There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

SnoopyStyle It's seven years in the future. The country is struggling with 20% of the population addicted to a new drug Substance D. In Anaheim, Bob Arctor (Keanu Reeves) is an undercover agent who wears a scramble suit which changes his appearance like a chameleon. The drug war is supported by private corporation New Path. Bob is himself addicted and starting to lose his mind.This is an unique movie of an original style. The rotorscoping animation style is hypnotic. It's not for everybody. It can be maddening to watch as the madness of this world can infect the audience. It's a visually weird movie. It gets tiring to watch. It may be better as an animated short than a full-length feature. The talkative story can also wear out its welcome.

Dolan Brula This is more of a 7.5 out of ten for me. It was a good drama but the plot could be at times just as confusing as Bob Arctor's life. It all however makes sense in the end but obviously throughout the movie you do not know that. In the end the characters and conversations were great, the twist at the end was great and the overall "D"-atmosphere (you'll get this reference when you watch it) was conveyed quite well and in which was complemented and even enhanced by the bold and daring visuals. As far as the visuals are concerned it is in my experience that people either love it or hate it. But don't let that discourage you! You will be pleasantly surprised even if the visuals aren't your thing. The only other issue I had was the lack of action. To compensate though this dark drama gives you rich and interesting characters and a mind-bending even disturbing plot. Enjoy!Dolan Brula

The Squeerelist The story of A Scanner Darkly has never seemed more relevant than today. Director/Screenwriter Richard Linklater adapts here the work of Philip K. Dick and his original reflexion on government with this non-typical sci-fi piece. It deals with social issues, surveillance and drug-caused paranoia while abandoning the usual features of sci-fi spectacular like spaceships and other aliens. I am truly impressed by the vision of Linklater who literally made 2 movies. The first one was shot like a normal feature-film and the second movie was made by animators and drawers who painted over each and every frame of the first movie. The animation crew worked for 18 months: that's more than 350 man-hour per minute of film you will watch. You should watch A Scanner Darkly even only out of respect for the creation process and the originality of the project. Linklater turns the psychotic fate of an undercover cop into a dark comedy. Behind the drug addiction, the governmental surveillance, and the paranoia of its characters, A Scanner Darkly is definitely funny. Keanu Reeves who plays (once again) the misfit hero is actually not the best character of the story. Woody Harrelson, on the other hand, is a total blast. But in my opinion, Robert Downey Jr. totally steals the screen with his interpretation of the eloquent and sciency junkie. Winona Ryder is mysterious and Rory Cochrane is the psychotic druggie of the crew that loses it the most (he is exceptional too). I admire the artwork of the movie that makes me think of a complex underground graphic novel minus the geeky superheros. I feel that the characters are as normal as they can be considering they've been brain-damaged by the highly addictive 'substance D': yes, they are paranoid and have no future but they are also relatable which is the key to a good sci-fi movie. I believe good sci-fi is credible sci-fi. A Scanner Darkly is incredibly credible and can be adapted to any era: it worked back in the 70s and it works now more than ever.1 reason to watch: The 'Scramble-suit'!Read it here: http://squeerelist.blogspot.com/2013/05/a-scanner-darkly- 2006.html

Boba_Fett1138 With the use of rotoscoping, this clearly was an experimental project, that didn't entirely paid off, by the end.Its techniques and visual style help to make this an original movie to watch but when you look past this, the movie has little else to offer. The main story doesn't always work out that compelling, since most the time it is just meandering around and there isn't really being a good enough conflict in it story. At least not in its first half. It tries to create this but it doesn't ever get handled or developed properly enough and doesn't work out, until its last half hour, or so.For me the movie was just too often about nothing. I know that it's supposed to about the slow descent of a drug addict, so not everything is supposed to make sense or follow a fast paced, action packed main story but surely they could had spiced up things a bit more at times, with some shorter sequences, some more interesting dialog and by letting its main characters do some more interesting stuff. Some character now instead come across as redundant ones and too many of them don't help to let its story move along.And while the whole rotoscoping thing in this movie helps to make it unique and gives the movie a strong visual style, it was not something I was always too fond of or impressed with. Sometimes when the camera moved around the effects looked flat, literally. And besides, the whole effect looks like a layer, which you can simply apply to your movie, with any random big editing program. But apparently it all wasn't as easy as it looks, since post-production for this movie went on for 18 months.The one thing I did really like about this movie, was Robert Downey Jr.'s performance. It was the highlight of the movie for me and the only thing that was truly fun and interesting about it. Lots of other great actors also appear in this movie but none of them works out as well as Downey Jr. did. And no, Keanu Reeves is not horrible, his character is just kind of flat but I think this was more due to its writing and directing approach, that deliberately tried to make his character one that was more of an introvert one.An interesting movie experiment, that didn't entirely worked out but is still worth a watch.6/10 http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/