Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #952 in DVD
• Released on: 2007-01-22
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Formats: PAL, Widescreen
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 120 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Reviews
How well you respond to Richard Linklater's A Scanner Darkly depends on how much you know about the life and work of celebrated science fiction writer Philip K. Dick. While it qualifies as a faithful adaptation of Dick's semiautobiographical 1977 novel about the perils of drug abuse, Big Brother-like surveillance and rampant paranoia in a very near future ("seven years from now"), this is still very much a Linklater film, and those two qualities don't always connect effectively.

The creepy potency of Dick's premise remains: The drug war's been lost, citizens are kept under rigid surveillance by holographic scanning recorders, and a schizoid addict named Bob Arctor (Keanu Reeves) is facing an identity crisis he's not even aware of: Due to his voluminous intake of the highly addictive psychotropic drug Substance D, Arctor's brain has been split in two, each hemisphere functioning separately. So he doesn't know that he's also Agent Fred, an undercover agent assigned to infiltrate Arctor's circle of friends (played by Woody Harrelson, Winona Ryder, Rory Cochrane, and Robert Downey, Jr.) to track down the secret source of Substance D. As he wears a "scramble suit" that constantly shifts identities and renders Agent Fred/Arctor into "the ultimate everyman," Dick's drug-addled antihero must come to grips with a society where, as the movie's tag-line makes clear, "everything is not going to be OK."

While it's virtually guaranteed to achieve some kind of cult status, A Scanner Darkly lacks the paranoid intensity of Dick's novel, and Linklater's established penchant for loose and loopy dialogue doesn't always work here, with an emphasis on drug-culture humor instead of the panicked anxiety that Dick's novel conveys. As for the use of "interpolated rotoscoping"--the technique used to apply shifting, highly stylized animation over conventional live-action footage--it's purely a matter of personal preference. The film's look is appropriate to Dick's dark, cautionary story about the high price of addiction, but it also robs performances of nuance and turns the seriousness of Dick's story into... well, a cartoon. Opinions will differ, but A Scanner Darkly is definitely worth a look--or two, if the mind-rattling plot doesn't sink in the first time around. --Jeff Shannon

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 Linklater employed in 2001's WAKING LIFE, the film is an animated, trippy descent into one man's unraveling mind. Set in the not-too-distant future where a new drug, substance D, has created an epidemic, A SCANNER DARKLY charts the mental unraveling of Bob Arctor (Keanu Reeves). Arctor is an undercover cop who has been assigned to track a group of individuals who include the hyper-intense Luckman (Woody Harrelson), the ultra-paranoid Freck (Rory Cochrane), and the beautiful Donna (Winona Ryder). As the film unfolds and Arctor finds himself abusing substance D in order to maintain his façade, his mind begins to spin out of control, to the point where he doesn't know what's real and what isn't. Eventually, the truth comes out, leaving Arctor even more numbed. Linklater's surprisingly faithful adaptation of Dick's novel blends humor, drama, and Bob Sabiston's striking animation to deliver a thought-provoking film that will leave viewers as dazed as the film's protagonist.

Customer Reviews

Bugs
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, and probably one of the best things that has happened to Sci Fi cinema in a long time, because it actually 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 and 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 and shell games (all 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 and 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, and has some pretty funny but sad performances by Woody Harrelson, Robert Downey Jr. and Winona Ryder. And that sets the tone. The film is by turns funny and 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, and if you're just wanting escapism this probably doesn't have enough explosions, but what it is is a damn fine film and 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.
I absolutely love the visual style of this film, and 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 and 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 and Loathing meets Minority report and your part way to being as perplexed as ever. It's not a bad film at all, I enjoyed watching it, however I can guarantee that in a month's time I won't really remember, nor care, about this film.

Worth a rental, and great as an experimental piece, but lacks staying power.

A scanner closely
All in all, this is one of the better film adaptations of Dick's work, although probably for aficionados only; the uninitiated would almost certainly be confused and exasperated.

It follows the novel closely, and the rotoscoping is effective and unsettling, especially when depicting Arctor's 'scramble suit'. But the animation is, oddly, let down by the acting; Rory Cochrane is over-the-top as Freck, and Barris, whilst suitably sinister, is often unintelligible thanks to Downey's rapid, mumbled delivery. Keanu Reeves puts in a solid, tortured performance, and we warm to Winona Ryder's Donna as the film progresses.

But somehow the film fails to successfully capture Arctor's growing paranoia and his tenuous hold on reality, or the hopelessness felt by all the characters as they wander, drug-addled, though a surreal Californian suburban landscape.

Dick has not been well served by Hollywood. Even Blade Runner only scratched the surface of the complex novel on which it was based, and others, like Total Recall or Paycheck, come nowhere close. Minority Report was surprisingly faithful to Dick's short story, although lost several brownie points for (a) starring Tom Cruise; and (b) a predictable dose of Spielberg sentimentality at the end.

One day, maybe, someone will make a film of a PKD novel which actually works, one which captures the freewheeling weirdness of his plots, without losing their humour and essential metaphysical content - Ubik, possibly, or even Palmer Eldritch. But I'm not holding my breath.