A Scanner Darkly

There is a tendency among Hollywood critics (and the general viewers) that often rankles me.

It seems that when something different happens, audiences and critics alike have lost the ability to just grasp the difference and perhaps enjoy it for a change instead of griping about it.

I am not going to go into what Linklater wished to convey through this movie. So the story is nothing new, the characters are disappointing, and there is always that lack of direction in the proceedings. So <beep>ing what?

It is a good movie. At least for me when a movie tries to do something different, even if that difference is merely technological, it is a good thing.

A Scanner Darkly makes use of interpolated rotoscoping that makes a regular movie look like a cel animation. The results are remarkable.

It is said that 500 hours worth of effort was required to get 1 minute of movie screen time. That is a lot of hard work and it is appreciated.

More than that it is beautiful.

This is one of those movies that fall into the animation genre and remain faithful to adult audiences. Indeed, this movie is not for the kids at all.

Though the plot is nothing that will win Academy Awards it was sufficient to keep me engrossed during the entire movie.

The acting is superb and though there is something wanting in the characters they nevertheless touch you.

Especially at the end when the whole mess is finally revealed.

Since the movie actually shot real people instead of directly animating through the drawing board the expressions are caught wonderfully. Every move is spectacular and I wanted to watch several segments all over again just to watch the small animation tricks included in this brilliant piece of work.

A Scanner Darkly is good movie and certainly worthy of a place in any DVD collection.