A Scanner Darkly is funny, unnerving, astonishing, urgent. It's my kind of summertime special-effects extravaganza.
Comment
11/11/06
A Scanner Darkly (2006)
67
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:166
Fresh:112
Rotten:54
Average Rating:6.5/10
Consensus: A faithful adaptation of Philip K. Dick's novel, A Scanner Darkly takes the viewer on a visual and mind-blowing journey into the author's conception of a drug-addled and politically unstable world.
Runtime: 1 hr 40 mins
Genre: Action/Adventure
US Box Office: $5,281,537
Synopsis: Richard Linklater's adaptation of Philip K. Dick's classic novel is a challenging, mind-bending experience that cautions about the dangers of excessive drug use as well as the government's capacity... [More]
Starring: Keanu Reeves, Robert Downey, Woody Harrelson, Winona Ryder
Director: Richard Linklater
Reviews for A Scanner Darkly
21 - 40 (sorted by date; Australian critics are listed first)
free-flowing science-fiction drama that moves like a cloud of ink in a swimming pool. ... while the visuals are suitably trippy, 'Scanner' is disappointingly short on drama and compelling characters.
10/19/06
As A Scanner Darkly proves, Keanu is the Coolness -- passive blankness, leaden line delivery, and all. Let's hear it for the vague blur.
09/23/06
A thing of unique beauty and free-floating menace, A Scanner Darkly is also about the transmutation of good into evil and back into good, and the willful surrender of freedom in the name of propagandistic safety and betterment.
09/17/06
Possibly one of the strangest movies ever made, "A Scanner Darkly" is worth seeing if only for the eye-bending animation.
09/14/06
Linklater's adaptation of Dick's semiautobiographical novel is steadfastly faithful to its source, but the screenplay is more tedious than provocative, as it bogs down in an abundance of talky vignettes.
08/31/06
More time should have been spent on the script and less on the effects.
08/31/06
That Linklater can keep a light tone running through the film in spite of weighty subject matter ensures that A Scanner Darkly is accessible enough for wide audiences without dumbing down for others.
08/26/06
t's fascinating to watch some of the actors who have had real-life addictions (like Dick did himself) dive into their own convoluted rationalizations and philosophies during the film. It's almost like watching one of their 12-step meeting
08/23/06
It is not a great film, but an insidious one, the sort that gets under your skin. It leaves you scrabbling at aphids, hoping they really are in your imagination.
08/19/06
You’ve never seen anything like this before due to some simply astonishing animation.
08/18/06
Its intelligence makes it near-essential viewing.
08/18/06
Top CriticWondrously attractive, all the more so for the avoidance (with one or two exceptions) of extrovert Waking Life-style set-pieces.
08/17/06
Engaging, beautifully animated sci-fi thriller with superb performances and a script that manages to be funny, disturbing and thought-provoking all at once.
08/17/06
Linklater has a determined method in making sense of the madness -- framing Dick's political paranoia as a plea for mankind to reverse the course of its self-destruction.
08/15/06
It's never less than incredibly beautiful to watch.
08/15/06
A wonderfully trippy movie, more about the drugs and paranoia than the plot
08/12/06
Linklater somehow makes coherent Dick's incoherent visions.
08/05/06
About on par with watching Cheech and Chong follow up a screening of their Up in Smoke with a PSA on the evils of marijuana.
08/02/06
For all of the film's ambitions and technical complexity, and for all the apt reasoning behind its storytelling decisions, the narrative is never particularly engrossing.
07/28/06
Latest News for A Scanner Darkly
January 09, 2007:
Online Film Critics Name Their Year-End Favorites
Hosted right here at the illustrious Rotten Tomatoes is the official website of the Online Film Critics Society, an international group of flick analyzers who put their heads... More...
August 31, 2006:
A Taste of What's "Next" for Nicolas Cage
Any time I hear the phrase "movie based on a Philip K. Dick story," I know I have to do a little more research. The next PKD adaptation is Lee Tamahori's... More...
August 08, 2006:
Paul Giamatti to Star as Philip K. Dick
He night not be as famous as H.G. Wells or Isaac Asimov, but ask a sci-fi enthusiast what they think of Philip K. Dick, and get ready for a lengthy conversation. The late and... More...
July 24, 2006:
Box Office Wrapup: "Pirates" Passes $300M; "Lady" Stumbles
Johnny Depp made this weekend's four new releases walk the plank as his megablockbuster Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest became the first film of the year to spend... More...
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