Philip K Dick’s novels and stories are responsible for some of the best science-fiction movies to ever come out of Hollywood. Total Recall, Blade Runner, and Minority Report were all based on Dick’s stories. A frequent complaint by Dick’s fans, however, is that the movies tend to stray from the source material in order to make a more conventional, Hollywood-style movie. When the promise of a movie that was much more faithful to the original material presented itself in the form of A Scanner Darkly, I jumped at the chance to see the final result. It turns out there may have been a good reason previous movies veered away from the original stories.
A Scanner Darkly takes place “seven years from now” in a world where the United States has become a police state. The authorities can install surveillance cameras into your home simply as a result of “probable cause”. Your cell phone calls enable you to be tracked not only by your location but visually via cameras on every street. An illicit hallucinogenic drug — known as Substance D — has swept the nation and over 20% of the population is now addicted. (And when your every move is being watched, a drug that would allow you to escape into your own mind sounds like a good idea, right?)
“Fred” (Keanu Reeves) is an undercover agent working to bust a ring of Substance D dealers. As an undercover agent, he wears a device called a scramble suit to shield his true identity. His true identity is that of Bob Arctor, a man whose friends are all under surveillance. His roommates Barris (Robert Downey Jr.) and Luckman (Woody Harrelson) are addicts. His girlfriend Donna (Winona Ryder) is a dealer and an addict. And Bob is an addict. This is a fact he tries to hide from his superiors but his current assignment makes it more and more difficult to conceal.
Director Richard Linklater uses an animation technique called rotoscoping, which paints over individual frames of film to turn live-action footage into animation. Using computers, the process is tinkered with in what turns out to be an annoying distraction from the plot, which requires as much of your attention as you can afford to give in order to keep things straight. It’s hard to focus on the actions of the characters when it looks like they’re floating on their surroundings or perspectives are altered just slightly enough to be noticeable. While it may have been the director’s intent to make the world appear as if it’s being viewed through the eyes of an addict, it prevents the more important ideas of the film to be lost.
In addition to the intruding animation technique, there’s a problem in the fact that the plot, which may have been hard-edged stuff in 1977, now reads like headlines in the newspaper. A government that allows spying on individuals without a warrant? Reality. Corrupt and drug-addicted police officers? Reality. Scramble suits? Pretty much the only thing in the movie that hasn’t happened yet. The fact that much of this film is a roll call of current events is more disturbing than anything the movie can serve up.
It’s not all bad. Keanu Reeves turns in a good performance. The arguments between Downey Jr.’s Barris and Harrelson’s Luckman are humorous and provide the best moments of the film. The opening sequence, featuring Empire Records‘ Rory Cochrane fighting off an army of aphids, is effective and one of the only successful arguments for why the film should be animated.
The majority of what the movie has to say could have been done in a half hour short film. Even at a running time of an hour and 40 minutes, A Scanner Darkly seems entirely too long. While not as disgusting as Spun, or as lost up its own rectum as Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, A Scanner Darkly also meanders through its individual drug-induced haze without making a point strong enough to make the journey worth taking. That said, I have a feeling the film will be a cult hit at midnight showings. It does have some smarts but it doesn’t have a story.
2.0 out of 5.0 stars
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