Ah fuck, who am I fooling. This movie put me to fuckin sleep.

Maybe it’s over my head, I won’t rule that out. And I don’t want to say it’s necessarily a terrible movie (like WAKING LIFE – I hate that god damn movie). I haven’t read the book, and maybe people who did will enjoy it. Who knows. I think I admire what the movie is going for but that doesn’t change the fact that, to me anyway, it’s a meandering bore with barely any characters, humor or even plot to latch onto.

Keanu Reeves plays a narc who goes undercover with a bunch of hippies using a drug called “Substance D.” But he truly is addicted to the drug so also is undercover among the cops. Because it’s 7 years in the future he wears a “scramble suit” to hide his identity when talking to other cops. This is a suit that causes every part of his face and clothes to constantly morph into different identities (Michael Jackson’s “Black Or White” video on acid) and is probaly the most clever use of the animation (even if the gimmick gets old fast). The movie takes place in a surveillance-obsessed future where everything everybody does gets holographically recorded and then his job as a “scanner” is to go through the footage on fast forward. (It is not related to SCANNERS or SCANNER COP.) Because his drug use causes damage to his brain he begins to spy on himself without realizing that it’s himself (or at least that’s what I gather after reading up on the book afterwards.)

That’s sort of what it’s about but unfortunately that’s not what you’re watching for most of the movie. Mostly you’re watching Robert Downey Jr. and Woody from Cheers laying around in an apartment or sitting in a diner pretending to be real high and getting confused about stuff. Also Winona Ryder is there and some other guy who acts like Renfield from Dracula to show how high he is, proving conclusively that drawings can overact. Sometimes I thought he was trying to be Benicio del Toro in FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS and that’s helpful because it makes it easier to figure out what is wrong with the movie. As much as they’re marketing it as sci-fi, this is not about robots and lasers, it’s more of a drug movie. Like FEAR AND LOATHING it is intentionally disorienting and kind of puts the viewer in a drug state. But in F&L, you have two undeniably compelling lead characters with strong personalities. You have lots of hilariously insane conversations and nightmarish drug freakouts (the lizard people is the famous one but my favorite is the bath tub suicide/grapefruit tossing scene). And there are other characters and a great setting to play off of. And when it comes around to having insights about the world of the 1970s, it seems earned and insightful and relevant to today. SCANNER DARKLY is weak or absent in all those departments.

Especially the dialogue. When you’re making a movie that’s more about people talking than about any kind of plot, they should probaly be talking about something interesting. If this shit is lifted straight from the novel then I apologize, but at least as presented here it’s a fucking bore. The closest thing to an interesting conversation is when they study a bicycle and debate how many gears it has. They speak third rate mystical drug nonsense, not nearly as pretentious as all that college dorm dream bullshit in WAKING LIFE, but even more meaningless.

And then there’s the characters. I don’t got a problem with Keanu. He’s Neo, for chrissakes. But I don’t know what his personality is in this movie, other than confused. And they definitely give the guy some soliloquy type dialogue that his mouth can’t handle. Then you got Winona. She is no more likable than any of the rest of these characters, possibly less. And it’s only in retrospect that I realize she is supposed to be the love interest who is driving the story. I’m not sure what Keanu sees in her but maybe if I knew what Keanu was about I would.

Most disappointing is Woody, because I actually like that guy. Remember Larry Flynt? KINGPIN? Even NATURAL BORN KILLERS – I didn’t like the movie, but he was good in it. So I was ready to enjoy his performance. Finally they tear him away from riding around on a hemp bicycle to do another movie but they only let him be mildly amusing. To be fair, the packed screening I saw the movie with laughed at a lot of the mildly wacky drug antics throughout the movie, but I didn’t get one laugh out of it.

I guess it’s nice to see Winona Ryder in a movie again, she used to be pretty good. And if you’ve always dreamed of seeing a drawing of her boobs, here is your movie. Please note though, there is not a tentacle going up her coochie like in some of your other “adult oriented” type cartoons you weirdos jerk off to.

That’s right, this is a type of cartoon so I should probaly analyze the cartoonsmanship a little bit. The last cartoon I saw was ICE AGE PART 2 on a plane and I would have to say that I liked this better than ICE AGE PART 2. They are equally boring and laugh-free but this one didn’t have jokes about animals shitting, which makes it stand out as a unique use of animation. I guess it’s the same as WAKING LIFE, I have to acknowledge that it is an original use of the particular medium, and that’s a good thing. We need more people trying new things. But that doesn’t necessarily mean it works.

Why isn’t this movie live action? I guess because it’s a drug movie and there are some weird visions here and there. Maybe you’ve seen the guy with the eyes all over his head, and there’s bugs crawling on a guy at the beginning. Those are the cool parts. Other than that it’s mostly just regular boring suburban places and people. Because the visually imaginative stuff is such a small part of the movie it seems like kind of a waste of time for animators. But I think maybe I know what they were going for. In live action, those parts would be a computer effect that would stand out from the rest of the movie. But this way everything has the same level of reality, and even ordinary everyday things likes couches and pet dogs are a little wobbly and gooey and make you seasick. That sort of works so I’ll give it a pass.

Also I guess it adds production value because without the tracing over this would mostly be camcorder shots of famous actors pretending to be high in some dude’s living room.

But another good question is, why is it traced over live action instead of a real cartoon? I’m sure tracing over is a gigantic pain in the ass, but it’s not as effective as a cartoon. You’re always aware that it’s real footage that somebody traced over so it distances you. In a real cartoon, some animator is creating life out of drawings. Here, they’re chasing after life and trying to draw lines over it. In small doses it’s kind of a novelty to see people who look like they’re made out of jelly, but I’m not convinced it’s a good way to tell a story. And the way they shade their faces makes it look like a cheesy photoshop filter.

Nope, I didn’t like this movie. But I don’t want it to feel all bad about itself and spiral into drug addiction, so I’ll end by saying 5 (five) nice things about it:

Number one, a movie doesn’t carry full responsibility for putting a person to sleep. Other physical factors are involved such as fatigue, diet, etc. and maybe you wouldn’t have fallen asleep under different circumstances. You would’ve just been really fuckin bored and twiddling your thumbs while a drawing of Robert Downey Jr. tries to freak you out with how crazy and high he is.

Number 2, there’s occasionally some good stylistic flourishes. I like the way Linklater presents some of it as surveillance footage. There’s even a montage that’s sped up and has fast forward lines on it. That was cool although I’m not sure why holographic video fast forwards the same as VHS.

Number 3, it is probaly more intelligent than other animation related movies it will be competing against, such as GARFIELD PART 2 and etc.

Number 4, you might like it better than I did, who knows.

Number 5, as dull as the nonsensical conversations are, at least they didn’t make me squirm and cringe like WAKING LIFE. And THANK THE LORD JESUS CHRIST IN HEAVEN that that Timothy “Speed 2″ Levitch guy isn’t in this one. I honestly would’ve walked out. “Coauthoring a giant Dostoevsky novel starring clowns” my ass.

the end

your friend,

Vern

Originally published at Aint-It-Cool-News: http://www.aintitcool.com/display.cgi?id=23634

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Actually that is all bullshit. I know this movie was beloved by critics and people alike. I even talked to one dude who hates all Richard Linklaters other movies but liked this one. As you probaly already know this is a movie that Linklater shot on digital video, then had computer animators paint over the video in their computer programs and turn it into surreal computer art type business. What the plot is about is this kid is dreaming, but he can’t wake up, and everywhere he goes people talk to him about free will or lucid dreaming or show off that they have some wacky quirk like they pretend their car is a boat.

Now let me tell you something. This is a completely original idea for an animated feature and I respect that. The animation style itself is also original and sometimes even looks good. Because of the software tracing over handheld video camera footage the backgrounds end up bouncing around like the whole city is built on the surface of a giant water bed, and everywhere you walk the trees and the buildings and the signs wobble around. Some of these shots, especially walking around on city streets, look stunningly beautiful and are a good totally phoney way of portraying a dream life. (I mean seriously, have you ever had a dream that was anything like this animation in any remote way? Of course not.)

There are also some interesting ideas to ponder in this movie. And some of the acting is good, like the one scene with Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy. A few of these actors know how to deliver this dialogue and make it sound like they’re actually talking and not just spewing memorized lines. Also some of the scenes obviously are real professors talking about the type of shit that they, unfortunately for us, like to talk about.

I had to get that out of the way because there are things that I can respect about this movie ON PAPER but that does not in any way mean that it wasn’t one of the most insufferable pieces of garbage of the year. I would have to say that despite some good scenes in there, overall I hated this fuckin movie.

Look, maybe you guys went to college, maybe you want to be back there talking to the worst bags of hot air you’ve ever known and consider that a good way to spend 90 minutes of valuable life. But don’t put the rest of us through that. I took a wednesday night writing class at a sort of hippie college so I’ve witnessed these kind of fuckwads firsthand. And I think anyone who has met these people in person knows that they should not be glamorized in cartoons. At this school they have what is called seminar. Everybody in the class is supposed to read about a book, and then they come and discuss it. They talk a little about the book but mostly go off on tangents about subjective vs. objective reality, existentialism, and what happened that week on the simpsons. Well this movie is like SEMINAR: THE ANIMATED MOVIE.

Okay let me give you a different example. I was on the bus and all the way from downtown to my house there was this yuppie talking loudly on his cell phone to a friend who had just gotten back from india. “So tell me all about it! Was it really indian? I mean did they have persian rugs everywhere? Tell me!” He went on and on about did you go out of Heathrow and etc. and tried to make it clear to everyone on the bus that he was intimately familiar with the airports and geography of Europe and was very worldly and etc., although at no point did he demonstrate knowledge that India and Pakistan were believed to be at the brink of nuclear war and that the day before the US had urged all Americans to leave.

Then the other day I went to a party and got into a conversation about THE OUTFIT and then everybody started talking about what Truffaut and Godard do. And the day after that I went to a barbecue and listened to some guys talk about which hotels they’ve stayed at in Vegas, which casinos they felt were used as locations in the movie SWINGERS, which magicians they wanted to see, why the logos for NBA teams symbolize the downward spiral of the sport and why the NFL is the only legitimate professional sports league.

If I had a video camera and taped all these fuckwads talking and then turned it into a cartoon, that might be quite an accomplishment for myself but I would not be cruel enough to release it in theaters and on dvd and expect people to actually watch it. These are the types of conversations a man or woman spends his or her life trying to avoid, except when high. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a movie before where I felt like I needed to nod politely and try to think of an excuse to leave.

I mean look, if you haven’t seen this movie yet and I’m not convincing you, I have no choice but to pull out the big guns. Here are some actual quotes from the movie:

“I’m beginning to think that it’s something that I don’t really have any precedent for, it’s totally unique, the quality of the environment and the information that I’m receiving.”

“When I say ‘love’, the sound comes out of my mouth, and it hits the person’s ear, travels through this byzantine conduit in their brain, you know through their memories of love, or lack of love, and they register what I’m saying and they say yes they understand but how do I know they understand because words are inert, they’re just symbols. They’re dead. Y’know?” (in the next 10-20 seconds she also manages to use the words intangible, spiritual, communion, and transient.)

“We are all coauthors of this dancing exuberance where even our inabilities are having a roast. We are the authors of ourselves, coauthoring a giant Dostoevsky novel starring clowns.”

That’s not the only entry level pretentious literary reference either. Throughout the movie, people will be talking and slide into “Kind of like, D.H. Lawrence had this idea of two people meeting on a road…” blah blah fuckin etc. Or Philip K. Dick or you name it. A gal gives her idea for an interactive soap opera which comments on “consumerism and art and commodity.” Paradoxes, paradigms, self awareness. And yes, a professor talks about existentialism, fer cryin out loud. If you want to get the part of college that cannot be applied usefully, save your money and just watch this movie.

I’m not trying to say that these ideas are all full of shit or that these people are dumb or that thinking about things in different ways is not ever useful. Although, in the case of some scenes, that would be the truth. I’m just saying, this is a movie that made me want to back away slowly, and not make eye contact. These people are just like the asshole on the cell phone or the dudes who think the NBA logos are too cartoony – they think what they are saying is alot more insightful and impressive to the listener than it actually is. And no amount of fancy computer cartoons can disguise that fact.

You know what would be my idea of hell would be if this movie could follow you around and keep talking to you.

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