In an earlier post I stated in passing I thought a Scanner Darkly was one of the more dissappointing films of the year. This seems to have gotten a reaction among some people, as their passion for Dick has caused them to quickly correct anyone who questions whether this film was worth their time.
Just to be clear, I knew nothing about the Dick novel before I saw the movie Scanner Darkly. Everyone keeps telling me that it's a very good adaptation of the book, so I'm going to assume I wouldn't like the book. Based on the previews I thought this movie looked like a rad sci-fi flick. When it turned out to be some existential exploration talky I tried to adjust and enjoy, but it just didn't happen for me. When the conversations stop containing humor around 1/2 - 2/3 through, the movie really dragged for me and I couldn't focus. I liked the humor and thought the supporting cast was brilliant. Winona Ryder is a waste of space in this movie and Keanu is droll as pre-pill Neo all over again.
I guess it's more my fault than the movies, but I still at least partially blame Warner's marketing team for making me think it was some post matrix scifi movie. I rewatched the original trailer again just to make sure I wasn't crazy. And yup, sure enough, It's a trailer for a scifi movie in the post-matrix & computer Appleseed vein. If you've read the book I'm sure it's great, but what I expected and what I got were so different I was naturally dissappointed. When the movie finally did get interesting to me and I thought we were going to get a nice exposing the conspiracy bit, the movie ends abruptly. It doesn't feel like a whole movie to me. But again, this is just my experience with Scanner Darkly. It seems like everyone has strong opinions about this movie.
