A Scanner Darkly (HD-DVD)
Picture:
B Sound: B- Extras: B- Feature: B-
Now that
adapting Philip K. Dick works is not as uncommon as it used to be, the
likelihood of the results not working (like Spielberg’s Minority Report) are increasing and some of his books have dated
more than others. Richard Linklater
takes the same simple, effective animation technique he used on the underrated Waking Life (reviewed elsewhere on this
site) of animating over live-action footage and brings Dick’s A Scanner Darkly (2006) to life as a
smart tale of the near future.
At issue
is the future of the individual and a hot new drug called Substance D, which
everybody who uses it loves and slowly turns them into vegetables that
disconnect them from human interaction and makes them more susceptible to a
government increasingly hell bent on rolling back their rights among other
things. It turns out the drug is even
worse than that and does not help Bob Arctor (Keanu Reeves) when he is a spy
for the government on other users, while using it himself.
His
girlfriend Donna (Winona Ryder) is a heavy user and has her circle of
not-so-great friends to perpetuate her use.
As everyone around him becomes gutted out, the drug begin to cause Bob
to have a split personality, a sort of artificially induced schizophrenia,
though it is not that simple and his double life is about to run into some
serious troubles.
This is
an anti-drug work up there with Darren Aronofsky’s Requiem For A Dream, though that fell into unintentional self-satire
towards the end despite its welcome, graphic honesty. Here, the material is more imaginative and
challenging, but Linklater goes into a direction that is either purposely
confused, accidentally so, purposely ambiguous and sadly even possibly where he
is saying things only he understands. I
will need to revisit this again as a result, but this still works often enough
to keep you watching and it is always nice to watch anything that gets you
thinking and talking about it afterwards.
You’ll want all your friends to see it too.
Robert
Downey Jr., Woody Harrelson and Rory Cochrane also supply voices.
The 1080p
digital High Definition image is pretty good and shows some improvements over
the same variation of rotoscoping Linklater used on Waking Life, though the HD Also shows limits which are natural to
the nature of the production. This still
looks better than it would on standard DVD.
The Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 mix is also a little better than the regular
Dolby from that DVD, but is not sonically spectacular, though effective with
character many more ambitious and louder mixes lack.
Extras include
an interesting feature length audio commentary by writer/director Richard
Linklater, Keanu Reeves, producer Tommy Pallotta, author Jonathan Lethem, and
Isa Hackett Dick (daughter of Philip K. Dick), One Summer In Austin: The Story Of Filming A Scanner Darkly
featurette, The Weight Of The Line:
Animation Tales featurette and the original theatrical trailer. They are all worth your time after seeing the
main feature.
In all
this, Linklater is on a role (give or take The
Bad News Bears remake) and we can only hope this continues. We need all the consistent directors we can
get!
- Nicholas Sheffo
