*** Spoiler Alert ***

I saw A Scanner Darkly Friday and thought I’d see if anyone else had seen it and if so what you thought of it. I rented it because I remembered the trailed looking cool with the whole thing done in an animated style. If I understood correctly they taped the whole movie normally and then converted it to look like an animated style. Personally, I thought the visual style was pretty cool. After about 20 or 30 minutes I got use to it and did not even notice it for the most part.

The movie itself is one of the more confusing movies I’ve seen in a while. It is about an undercover narcotics agent, Bob Arctor, who gets addicted to the drugs he is trying to fight. For about half an hour in the middle of the movie the plot is a little blurry, but in the end you find out that his fellow police officers get him addicted so that they can make him go through rehab. They believe that the rehab centers are the ones creating and supplying the drugs. This turns out to be true, but Bob is not in on the plan and as a result he ends up a total burnout. The “moral” of the movie comes down to “Is it worth sacrificing a police officer’s life to fight the war on drugs for everyone else?” Going into the movie I had no idea that was what it was about, but I did not think this was how it was going to be. There are some really funny parts throughout the movie as Bob is hanging out with a group of drug addicts trying to find out who their supplier is. Since they are all high most of the time it makes for some crazy conversations and plans. Like making a homemade silencer that does not work. My only complaint besides the confusing section in the middle was that they threw in a sex scene for no apparent reason. Maybe I missed how it fit into the story since I was confused for a while, but I did not see how it tied into the story and it seemed like they put it in there just to have a naked girl in the movie.

Overall, I thought the movie was ok. I’d give it one thumb up, but not two. The graphics style was interesting, but the plot was a bit confusing.