A Scanner Darkly

This is quite possibly my favorite movie of this year. All that competes is Babel, Little Miss Sunshine, and maybe a few other independent films.

This story was based on Philip K. Dick’s novel. A satire on the modern age and its drug influences. Dick believed this is what our world would become. We focus on a narcotic’s agent Bob Arctor (Keanu Reaves) who goes undercover to live amongst the drug users. He however gets mixed up in this and takes too much of ‘Substance D’ and begins to lose touch with reality. We follow his daily routine and begin to feel the same way he does as the story progresses. Now I’m not a huge Keanu Reaves fan but I have to say he pulled this role off well. Personally, I think this is his best role to date. Robert Downy Jr. also plays a great character as an insane drug peddling paranoid genius. However, my favorite character and why I’d see this film again, would have to be Rory Cochrane. He plays Charles Freck, a junkie that is so far gone that he makes Downy look normal.

The movie is animated, it is vectored which adds a very surreal and dreamlike feel to the movie. I think it would not be what it is without the vector effect. I could watch it over and over just to gaze mindlessly at the art.

If you want a serious mind trip that will leave you wondering why reality is so boring see a Scanner Darkly. If not, see it for the vector magic. I give this a 8/10.