The film is directed by Richard Linklater, who has done a few movies I've enjoyed, but nothing I'm immensely big on. It has Keaneu Reeves as the main character Rob Arcter / Fred, and also includes some other big names in the supporting like,...
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The film is directed by Richard Linklater, who has done a few movies I've enjoyed, but nothing I'm immensely big on. It has Keaneu Reeves as the main character Rob Arcter / Fred, and also includes some other big names in the supporting like, Winona Ryder, Woody Harrelson, Robert Downey, Jr., and Rory Cochrane. on top of that, big names like Steven Soderbergh and George Clooney are in the executive producer spots. There's enough big money name dropping involved on this one that it's almost bound to do well just on name draw alone.

A Scanner Darkly is based on a novel by the same name written by Pillip Kindred Dick. Pillip K. Dick is responsible in no small part for many infamous sci-fi movies, including Blade Runner, Total Recall, and Minority Report the screenplays for which are based on his works, a man that had died in 1982 his legacy has lived on, and probably will for some time. Currently in the works is the film Next, which is based on his story The Golden Man.

The story of A Scanner Darkly is a futuristic tale of the world and it's addiction to a new drug called 'Substance D', a highly addictive psychoactive drug. Undercover narcotics officers outside of the the seedy underworld they are trying to bring down wear special 'scramble suits' which resample their appearances and voice patterns constantly so that they cannot be identified, they wear these suits even when in the police station so that no one, even those directly superior to them, can figure out who they are. Inside the seedy underworld I referred to earlier, however, they take copius amounts of drugs, and therein lies the basis for our story. Substance D has a longterm, and violent affect on the users brain, causing the left hemisphere of the brain to begin to fail until the right hemisphere attempts to compensate, causing hallucinations, and general visual impairment. Robert Arcter, a narcotics officer known as Fred to the precint, is already beginning to feel the affects of prolonged use of D. He feels his mind unraveling around him, and as he's ordered to spy on himself and his friends using holographic scanners, the title of the story takes on it's meaning, as he wonders how the scanners see him, "clearly, or darkly?" The story has several twists and turns that, while somewhat predictable, still give you the feeling of being yanked around, and you feel in the dark, as if suffering with Arcter throughout the entire thing.

The acting is actually fairly good, considering the cast. I'm not a huge fan of ANY of the names in the film, but being that half the main cast are real life drug addicts and activists, I suppose the 'acting' wasn't too hard for them anyway. The big draw for me, at least at first, was the artistic value. It uses a technique called rotoscoping to produce vector keyframes which are interpolated and leave you with a beautiful and incredible visual spectacle. It, of course, is meant to add to the feeling of bizarre drug induced sight, which works really well. Had the film been merely left alone (without rotoscoping), it would not have had even near the effect it had otherwise.

My opinion? I really enjoyed it, it doesn't exactly rank on my top 10 list by any means, but it's fantastic and definitely worth an hour and a half of your life to watch.