A Scanner Darkly (2006)

Philip K. Dick is a sci-fi author famous for his myriad of books, many of which got turned into movies vaguely based on them. “Blade Runner,” “The Adjustment Bureau,” “Total Recall,” “Minority Report,” and “Predestination” were film adaptations of his writings, for better or worse.
“A Scanner Darkly” is another one, and I think it might be the closest interpretation of his writing translated to the silver screen.
I say that because it makes absolutely no sense.
Some of PKD’s writings are brilliant. “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep” (which became “Blade Runner”) is smooth, hard-core science fiction.
Some of his stuff also come across as if it were written while high on some particularly psychedelic mushrooms, like his book “The Clans of the Alphane Moon,” which doesn’t really make sense until you’re about two-thirds of the way through, and even then still plays pretty loose with the concept of a plot.

But back to the movie. Let’s start here: I’m always a little tickled when movies start with a title card that indicates some upcoming time-to-be.
1999’s “X-Men” started with “in the near future,” which means that, regardless of when you watch that movie, it’s always just a few years away.
“A Scanner Darkly,” which was released in 2006, started with “seven years from now,” putting it solidly in 2013, a date six years in the past as of this writing and forever getting older.

This movie was a live-action cartoon. The entire thing was filmed with a cast on a set, then someone went over an animated everything. It made for a visually interesting viewing that looked like a precursor to the art style chosen for the “Borderlands” video game series but didn’t add anything to the way the story was told. There really wasn’t a particular benefit to animating over the cast that couldn’t have been displayed with practical effects or CGI.

The premise of “A Scanner Darkly” is that Robert Arcton (Keanu Reeves) is a cop. Or a druggie. Somehow definitely both.
Neither ‘version’ of himself seems to realize that he has a life on the other side of the law, which gives it a bit of a “Fight Club” feel, but with much less fun involved in finding out that you’re watching two halves of the same person.
Arcton works for the Orange County Police Department, in a ‘future’ America that is suffering from an absolutely devastating nation-wide addiction to something called ‘Substance D’ - a brain-destroying narcotic with only vaguely defined symptoms.
You never actually see ‘Substance D’ in action, or even the drug itself, which seems odd, as the dithering plot is keeps trying to get you to focus on it and care.
For some reason, the “drug-addled America” looks an awful lot like regular America. Insert your political commentary here if you’d like, but I’d simply call it bad world-building.

Somehow, the OCPD have decided that the best way to find the source of this new drug is to develop a task force, and in that task force everyone wears a “scramble suit,” which allows the wearer to look like anyone, everyone, and no one all at once. The effect is supposedly that if you were to see a wearer on the street, they simply wouldn’t register in your mind - you’d just see some average, forgettable face. Because the movie was ‘animated,’ the scramble suits were constantly fluctuating, which was supposed to represent the way that the appearances were constantly changing, but just ended up being incredibly distracting and kind of unnerving to watch.
In this new OCPD task force, everyone wears a scramble suit. All the time. And the way the movie is animated, it’s not clear how anyone is ever sure who they’re talking too, other than simply hoping that the guy claiming to be the boss is telling the truth.

These scanner suits were revealed to the public to mild applause - it’s a ground-breaking technology that’s greeted with the same enthusiasm as the neighbor’s kid showing you the same drawing for the third time.
That should have been the highlight of the movie! Think of the applications! The political use, the military effectiveness, the corporate espionage!
But no.
The public sees it, says “that’s nice,” and then it’s never discussed ever again, in any way.

We’re also introduced to four other characters: Barris (Robert Downey Jr.), Ernie (Woody Harrelson), Donna (Winona Ryder), and Freck (Rory Cochrane).
Barris is the living embodiment of a drug-addled neurotic, while Ernie and Freck just... exist and get high. Donna is a pseudo love-interest to all four male characters, who spend the first half of the movie talking about trying to have sex with her.
In one scene, Barris is in a cafe talking to a waitress, and a thought-bubble appears over his head as he imagines the waitress stripping.
It’s only his imagination, he doesn’t say anything regarding it, and nothing comes of it. It’s just this weird, unnecessary thing that takes up screen real estate during a scene that should have been cut all together.

I had never seen Robert Downey Jr. in anything until “Iron Man” came out in 2008. His personality and affectations were, I thought, designed for Tony Stark. I then assumed he was requested to act that way in the two “Sherlock Holmes” films he did afterwards, effectively type-casting himself.
Nope. Turns out that’s just the way he acts, as he had exactly the same weird, fast-talking, better-than-thou persona in this movie too. It fit his character; it was just a weird realization for me.

The entire first half of this movie is a stoner comedy, but without the ‘comedy’ part, while the plot doesn’t amble in until about the half way mark, at which point it drops all pretenses of caring about Freck and Ernie and entirely focuses on Arcton and Donna and an incredibly poorly explained police operation to catch Barris.

As you watch, it becomes increasingly clear that there’s no one to root for. Arcton is somehow just a John Doe despite being the main character, the cops he works with seem like they’re borderline incompetent, and the druggie friends are just there, being weird and taking drugs.

The one credit I will give to this movie is that there was a twist that I didn’t see coming, relying on someone disguising themselves in a scanner suit. Fortunately, considering the giant macguffin that allowed such a twist, it was the sort that made sense in retrospect, instead of just being some kind “Look! We tricked you! Look how clever we are!” as some directors are wont to do (a la M. Night Shamylan).

Ultimately, this movie just feels like watching someone else’s slow, boring, horrible trip.
It’s not fun, funny, insightful, deep, or even particularly good fiction.
A list of “friends I lost to hard drugs” ran right before the end credits in Philip K Dick’s text epilogue (“textilogue”?), so this was clearly his idea of telling story with an agenda.
Too bad it was just a bad story.

The only reason I could possibly recommend this movie is for the novel art style they used for animation, but that’s about it.
If you find the old trailers for it on YouTube, you’ve seen the only entirety of the part of the film worth watching.
Don’t waste your time.