Review - A Scanner Darkly

by John Mizer
August 18, 2006

Director Richard Linklater has returned to post production animation with A Scanner Darkly and has managed to eclipse the artistic success of 2001's "Waking Life". Where Waking Life relied on it's trippy, lucid animation with the character's verbose dissertations to make it's mark, A Scanner Darkly rests on the plot. Using the Phillip K. Dick novel of the same name as his template, Linklater has found a nice pairing of surreal visual stimulus and a somewhat disturbing and prophetic storyline. It's difficult to find a protagonist here and that just may be the point. The casting of Keanu Reeves can often either make or break a film and Reeves' portrayal of Bob Arctor is a comfortable fit being perfectly complemented by the performances of Robert Downey Jr. and Woody Harrelson as his paranoid, quirky drug buddies. If Hunter S. Thompson were still alive, one would expect a cameo to be in order.

It doesn't take long to realize the spector of big brother watching us in A Scanner Darkly which only lends more credence to the source material written decades ago. Hollywood has mined the works of Phillip K. Dick several Times (Blade Runner, Minority Report, Total Recall) and has come up with gold. A Scanner Darkly keeps the streak alive.

Rating: 4 out of 5