Writer/director Richard Linklater’s A Scanner Darkly is a challenging and visually-stunning Philip K. Dick adaptation that, in all of its profundity, goes absolutely nowhere. Usually, I will complain that a movie tries to mold too much of a story around too few ideas, but here, Linklater has it the other way around. The film, much thanks to its source material, is full of riveting ideas which are as resonant in today’s society as they were when Dick originally wrote his novel in 1977, but on the level of a linear-narrative, it offers almost nothing for viewers to chew on. The premise involves undercover agent Bob Arctor (Keanu Reeves) in a future that has fallen victim to loose drug-enforcement laws. The popular “Substance D”, among other more-typical drugs, overwhelms sects of the U.S. population. Unfortunately, Linklater’s adapted screenplay is only able to use this fascinating set-up to question the progression of order in American Society; his nonchalant re-creation of A Scanner Darkly’s story is mostly muddled and uninteresting.

     What’s much more engaging than the film’s story is its visual appearance. Linklater presents A Scanner Darkly in the style of rotoscope-animation, filming every scene as one would a live-action feature, but then painting over the frames and adding additional effects in order to create a surreal look about the images. The writer/director also used the technique in his previous film, Waking Life, but here he has refined it for a highly haunting effect. Primarily, Linklater has renovated the style by implementing more realistic-looking backgrounds than those featured in Waking Life, which accentuate the animated features of the human-figures. Not to mention, in addition to its ability to highlight Dick’s paranoid vision throughout the film’s duration, rotoscoping was highly cost-effective in allowing Linklater to craft certain special-effects. It’s quite a shame that the weak narrative isn’t able to support A Scanner Darkly’s commanding, illustrious visions.

     Among the many other things that A Scanner Darkly has going for it, the performances in the film are superb. Had the storyline matched the intellectual complexity of the movie’s thematic value, Reeves’ interpretation of the protagonist’s dilemma involving his government work’s intrusion on his personal-life would have been highly compelling. Robert Downey Jr., Rory Cochrane, and Woody Harrelson also chime in with tremendous portrayals of users of Substance D; their frantic exhibitions of addiction make for the most complete thread of the movie’s story.

     Due to his Linklater’s outstanding repertoire, A Scanner Darkly’s lackluster narrative hasn’t caused me to lose faith in the filmmaker as a writer, but it certainly hasn’t improved my view of his career, either. I’m glad that Dick’s pertinent body of work continues to be adapted by Hollywood today, but it’s unfortunate that the results, in this case, are dizzy and incomplete.

-Danny, Bucket Reviews (7.18.2006)