I love this movie so much

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

best movie i've ever seen.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

Philip K. Dick is the author of several novels cited in the dystopian sci-fi genre, some of which garnered powerful film adaptations such as Ridley Scott's classic hit 'Blade Runner' and the popular Amazon series 'The Man In The High Castle'. These films/novels expressed many thought-provoking themes dealing with society in depression, providing audiences with powerful "what-if" premises. This adaption to Dick's novel 'A Scanner Darkly' gets a provocative treatment with powerful writing and visually stunning rots cope animation by the hands of director Richard Linklater, a filmmaker often known for films revolving around personal relationships between characters, philosophical themes, and the reality of growing up. Unlike his other works, Linklater takes a unique direction in painting a picture of the effects of drug trading and addiction while adopting a compelling visual style. Set in California in the near-future society where the United States was defeated in the U.S/Mexico Drug Wars and an epidemic of drug use spreads across the nation, Bob Arctor (played by Keanu Reeves) is an undercover cop working for a company to capture the distributor of a mind-altering drug known as Substance D. Arctor is unexpectedly drawn into addiction to the drug by this housemates James Barris (played by Robert Downey Jr.), Charles Freck (played by Rory Cochrane), and Ernie Luckman (played by Woody Harrelson); and eventually his girlfriend Donna (played by Winona Ryder). As his addiction to the powerful drug escalates, he begins losing identity and sense of reality around him.This film delivers a fair cache of surprises in this dystopian thriller, and the story presents plenty of twists and turns throughout, some of which wouldn't be as possible if it weren't for the visceral rotoscope animation. One of the most appealing elements includes a "scramble suit" which is comprised of non-stop shifting images of people to disguise the wearer in a series of constant shifting visual identities of personal entities, something that would be nearly impossible to bring to life in a live-action setting. The animation also allows certain advantages to present the story in both an emotional and visual manner in a way that fits well with the plot. Now this doesn't work mark the first time Richard Linklater has taken usage of rotoscope animation. His first usage of this technique reverts back to his 2001 film 'Waking Life' which centered around a series of unrelated character engaging in conversations dealing with human psychology and stream of consciousness. This film however, presents a more polished rotoscope animation and more plot-centric storytelling. With an intelligent screenplay, the story sprouts plenty of surprises dealing with the characters' downward spiral into a perilous world of drug addiction and trading including scenes of creepy hallucinations, and succeeds at an engaging level. The characters feel real and show genuine humanity, and the performances by the cast shine blissfully. Though the story occasional falls into some areas that are both dull and incoherent, it manages to stay strong for most of the run.A Scanner Darkly is a smart and provocative thriller with plenty of thrills and food for thought. It marks one of the best roles by star Keanue Reeves, and an honorable directorial effort by Richard Linklater. This sets a strong example of a film adaption to the a novel done right, a very surprising novel by Philip K. Dick brought to life on screen since Ridley Scott's Blade Runner.

This is certainly very much like Waking Life, in the obvious, similar ways. But while both are sort of hard to get into in their own ways, the plot here is just way too complicated. Maybe rewatches are needed, but a plot still needs to engage even if we don't fully get it or understand it, we need to be engaged and interested enough to continue. I wasn't totally bored, but it was really hard. If anything, the animation style is what made me stay with it, and it does get better as it goes on, more interesting to the point that I can say I barely, mildly liked it. The performances are pretty fantastic, especially Winona Ryder, and Reeves is as unengaging as ever.

There were a lot of things I was prepared to say about "A Scanner Darkly" before I saw it. I was ready to say how it augments even more the fantastic canon of films that Richard Linklater has built up; how it goes along with "Blade Runner" and "Minority Report" as a great Philip K. Dick adaptation; how it's finally a Robert Downey, Jr. film that I enjoyed (apart from the brilliant "Good Night, and Good Luck"). Unfortunately, it is none of these three things. While there are a lot of good things about "A Scanner Darkly", I was a bit disappointed having seen so many great Linklater films recently.The film is about a drug called "Substance D", and Keanu Reeves' character's attempt to shut down a drug ring. The film shows the effects of drug addiction, while also providing an interesting thriller with a lot of twists and turns. However the number of these twists is possibly too many, and you finish the film with a lot of confusion and unanswered questions. The performances are mostly great, and Woody Harrelson plays a crazy drug addict really well. Downey Jr. is, unfortunately, pretty unbearable throughout.The film is made using animation onto live-action footage, the same technique used in the excellent "Waking Life". Instead of giving a dream-like sense, he uses it here to make a film which gives the audience the same experience as the drug-taking protagonists. The animation also allows much of Dick's vision to come through, preventing the use of unconvincing CGI with things like the ingenious "scramble suit". Linklater has a very promising vision for the film, and his standard, dialogue-heavy style does work pretty well throughout – it frequently seems like he is the right person to be making the movie. One thing that is instantly noticeable about the script is its wit, and a lot of it, while crazy and slightly bleak, manages to be humorous as well.Without comparing "A Scanner Darkly" to any of Linklater's previous work, I would say that it is a good film, but unfortunately one cannot help but feel slightly let down after such a great catalogue previously. It's interesting, but not essential.

This film is based on a book by Philip K. Dick. Now I haven't read any of his books yet but from what I heard this is a solid adaptation. And this is a pretty darn good conspiracy film about a guy coping with his surroundings and a drug called Substance D. A drug that causes bizarre hallucination and makes them go all schizo and paranoid. It's basically a film that might be difficult to comprehend at first but you get use to it and it all makes clear to a degree. Keanu Reeves plays a guy named Bob Arctor who goes by other aliases. Now I don't think Keanu Reeves is a brilliant actor but he usually fits the roles he is given and in this case just perfectly. Keanu is really good at playing these confused and apathetic roles. Just about everyone is right for the roles they were given for this film. Robert Downey, Jr. is good at playing these pedantic and slightly weird characters and he nails it in this. Woody Harrelson is alright in this. But the guy that really nails it in this is Rory Cochrane, who is this jumpy, twitchy and overly paranoid character. And Rorly plays him flawlessly. Winona Ryder is also in this but felt that a bunch of other actresses could have played her role. When it comes down to it, it's the interactions between these characters that is the primary focus. And the conversations and the direction is clever and sometimes dumb(in a good way) but mostly amusing. This movie is shot with real actors but rendered into animation. Which adds to the weirdness of this film and bring out more of that trippy feel while it being cool and all. But wondered why they picked this subtle movie to do that in. Cause if they could have picked a story with explosions, car chases and other special effects and just used animation. It would have saved themselves a lot of budget and still could have gotten away with it in the audiences eyes. Although the animation rendering works in this film and doesn't seem like a gimmick. And even has couple of messages that can keep the audiences that watch this film thinking. And it's clever with it's execution, despite a twist when it hits I wondered how I could have missed that. Overall this is a good sci-fi conspiracy film that is well blended together. It's just a shame this film bombed at the box office.7.4/10