Review A Scanner Darkly

Review: A Scanner Darkly

Keanu Reeves plays an undercover cop in this animated version of a Philip K. Dick tale of a near-future dystopia. As usual with Dick's works this story is heavily coloured by his own substance-abuse and paranoia, but given the subject of this tale it gives him a perspective which, for once, enhances the narrative. That is presuming you can be entertained by an hour and a half of paranoid junkie rambling to get to a not very surprising 'twist'. You won't even get a satisfactory ending as the film just peters out without a conclusion.

Robert Downey Jr. and Woody Harrelson, neither one unfamiliar with, shall we say, major elements of their characters' makeup, act the pants off everyone else in a show-stealing double act so believable one could believe they got stoned and were left in the Big Brother house. They bring a much-needed lightness and sense of humour to an otherwise rambling, leaden and tedious script. Reeves' preferred underplaying technique by comparison leaves him looking more wooden and dull than ever. Given his manic turn in the Bill & Ted films we know he can be freer, so why he refuses to do so any more is a mystery.

Another mystery is why this is animated. As you doubtlessly know the scenes were all filmed as normal and then the animation was Rotoscoped over it. With the exception of the suits the undercover agents wear to hide their identities there are no special effects so it wasn't to cut the budget. This would have had an inflationary effect and served to delay the film's release by over a year. One is tempted to say that it's an attempt to enhance the feelings of unreality and disassociation, but can't escape the feeling that it's just one big technical jerk-off.

Too much is left unresolved - including the main plot. When Reeves has an apparently drug-induced hallucination that the girl he's sleeping with has transformed into his touch-averse girlfriend (Winona Ryder in her only nude role. Oh, that's why they animated the whole thing!) it makes sense as a guilty reaction. At least it does until his character is watching the surveillance tapes (don't ask) and we see the face morph and he doesn't question it.

Philip K. had a lot of good ideas for stories. Sadly, his writing technique and his own paranoia usually left them poorly developed and even undermined. That's why adaptations of his works are often so heavily re-written. This needed more of that treatment. Worth seeing but should/could have been much better. Far too much concentration on the kind of rambling waffle only the seriously stoned could care about.