A Scanner Darkly

Another one based on a novel by Philip K. Dick…and another one I have yet to read.
It was made in 2006…which surprised me…I thought it was older than that.
Takes place in the future, I can’t recall how far exactly…or if they even tell you?…Basically, a big majority of the country is addicted to drugs…in particular, this new drug, Substance D. Police surveillance is very invasive and intense…Arctor (Keanu Reeves) is meant to go undercover as a drug user…make friends with other drug users (Robert Downey Jr, and Woody Harrelson).
Arctor ends up getting hooked on drugs himself and falls in love with a girl, Winona Ryder, who is providing him with the drugs.
He ends up totally immersed in this new lifestyle…and the hemispheres in his brain are no longer functioning properly…causing him to lose the ability to distinguish between himself as a cop and a drug addict.
I was actually really impressed with the acting in this movie…aside from Keanu Reeves. I’ve never really been a big Keanu Reeves fan, and…I just wasn’t feeling it. Woody Harrelson especially was hilarious. Robert Downey Jr. was really quirky and odd. Even Rory Cochrane was hilarious with his portrayal of a heavy drug user…his facial expressions were just priceless.
The animation was really neat…and I’m sure took an incredibly long time to complete…but I think it was worth it. It made it different…added to the whole…I dunno. I felt like the whole movie I was wondering what was actually real. Were these people believing what they were seeing? Or seeing what they were believing?…kinda thing.
The beginning was a little slow, but it definitely worked itself out in the end…I really loved the ending.
Arctor is sent to rehab to recover…after the cops supposedly figure out that he is actually addicted to drugs too. We find out that their intention all along was to get Arctor addicted. The reason being that the number one rehab center, where people addicted go to recover, is suspected of actually manufacturing and distributing Substance D. In order to get anywhere near the center, you need to be heavily addicted to substance D. The girl, Winona Ryder, who he fell in love with as his drug dealer…was actually his boss. This was unkown to him, because everyone in that field of work wears these scramble suits that make them look like multiple people at once and change very frequently. She was one of the ones most responsible for setting him up. Their hope was to get him in the center, and hope that he still had a little bit of sense left in him, enough to find proof and be able to relay it back to the cops. He is actually sent to do farm work in the rehab center, and stumbles across rows and rows of blue flowers…which just so happen to be what they use to make substance D. The movie ends with him tucking a blue flower into his boot, and saying that its for his friends when he gets to go back and visit in a few months, at Thanksgiving…and that’s how its left off. I really liked the ending…I was hoping that they were going to put a twist in it.
I also liked…after the movie ended, but before the credits, there was a scrolling list of people dead/damaged because of extensive drug use. It was good, overall…and I think I liked it more than Blade Runner…which I’m not sure if that’s strange…from the ratings I’ve read, it seemed like Blade Runner got better reviews…but I found this more entertaining…and had more ‘huh…’ moments :P

8.7/10