A Scanner Darkly

A Scanner Darkly
by Richard Linklater

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DVD Cover Information

Actor: Keanu Reeves, Mitch Baker, Robert Downey Jr., Rory Cochrane, Sean Allen (II)
Director: Richard Linklater
Brand: Warner Brothers
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled)
Format: AC-3, Animated, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.66:1
Running Time: 100 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2006-12-19
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Warner Home Video

Movie Reviews of A Scanner Darkly

Movie Review: Great movie!
Summary: 5 Stars

This was a great movie. It had a specific message, and it really made me think and consider some of the things that go on in our world. I would definitely recommend it.

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All A Scanner Darkly Movie Reviews

Summary of A Scanner Darkly

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

Set in a not-too-distant future where America has lost its "war" on drugs Fred an undercover cop is one of many people hooked on the popular drug Substance D which causes its users to develop split personalities. Fred is obsessed with taking down Bob a notorious drug dealer but due to his Substance D addiction he does not know that he is also Bob. Based on a classic novel by Philip K. Dick. Starring Keanu Reeves ("Constantine" "The Matrix" trilogy) Academy Award-nominee and Golden Globe-winner Winona Ryder ("Girl Interupted" "Mr. Deeds") Academy Award and Emmy-nominee and Golden Globe-winner Robert Downey Jr. ("Good Night And Good Luck" "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang") and Academy Award and Golden Globe-nominee and Emmy-winner Woody Harrelson ("North Country" "The People vs. Larry Flynt"). Directed by Academy Award-nominee Richard Linklater ("Before Sunset" "Dazed and Confused"). Filmed in live-action and then animated using the same critically acclaimed process that Linklater used in his previous film "Waking Life."Running Time: 100 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: SCI-FI/FANTASY UPC: 012569594173 Manufacturer No: 59417

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