A Scanner Darkly

2006
R
1h 40m

IMDb RATING

7.0/10

119K

YOUR RATING

Keanu Reeves, Winona Ryder, Robert Downey Jr., and Woody Harrelson in A Scanner Darkly (2006)

Theatrical Trailer from Warner Independent Pictures

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2 Videos

98 Photos

Adult Animation Dark Comedy Animation Comedy Crime Drama Mystery Sci-Fi Thriller

An undercover cop in a not-too-distant future becomes involved with a dangerous new drug and begins to lose his own identity as a result.An undercover cop in a not-too-distant future becomes involved with a dangerous new drug and begins to lose his own identity as a result.An undercover cop in a not-too-distant future becomes involved with a dangerous new drug and begins to lose his own identity as a result.

Director
- Richard Linklater
Writers
- Philip K. Dick
- Richard Linklater
Stars

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

7.0/10

119K

YOUR RATING

Director
- Richard Linklater
Writers
- Philip K. Dick
- Richard Linklater
Stars

See production info at IMDbPro

Awards
- 4 wins & 21 nominations

Trivia
Robert Downey, Jr. wrote most of his lines down on post-it notes and scattered them around the set so he could read off them while filming a scene. The rotoscoping team simply animated over the notes to remove them from the film during post-production.

Goofs
While showing the monitoring equipment, Hank tells Fred that he could be anyone from Arctor's circle of friends, including Barris. This made sense in the book, however, by this time in the movie Hank has already seen Fred alongside Barris, so he could not possibly think they are the same person.

Quotes
Fred: [voiceover] What does a scanner see? Into the head? Down into the heart? Does it see into me? Into us? Clearly or darkly? I hope it sees clearly because I can't any longer see into myself. I see only murk. I hope for everyone's sake the scanners do better, because if the scanner sees only darkly the way I do, then I'm cursed and cursed again.

Crazy credits
The "Phil" mentioned in the "in memoriam" list as having permanent pancreatic damage is Philip K. Dick himself.

Connections
Featured in Siskel & Ebert: Rocky Balboa/The Good German/Letters from Iwo Jima/The Pursuit of Happyness/Breaking and Entering/Home of the Brave (2006)

Soundtracks
Fog
Written by Thom Yorke (as Thomas Yorke), Phil Selway (as Philip Selway), Jonny Greenwood (as Jonathan Greenwood),
Colin Greenwood and Ed O'Brien (as Edward O'Brien)
Performed by Radiohead
Courtesy of Capitol Records
Under licence from EMI Film & Television Music

User reviews335

Review

Featured review

7/10

Visually amazing yet flawed

Let's start by saying that Scanner would be worth seeing just for the amazing visuals. The 3d graphic novel look of this movie is beautiful and original although unequal in terms of quality as if different teams worked on different parts (which is in fact the case). A very special mention has to be given to the totally incredible and unique scramble suit. The plot was quite interestingly complex yet felt disjointed at times. The dialogs which were supposed to be a highlight were sometimes suitably absurd yet not overly clever or memorable. Midway through I did feel a little bored and I had trouble caring for the druggies characters although it probably wasn't the point.

I never felt particularly emotionally involved, I felt detached (very much like the characters when you think about it). The first character you encounter (Freck) was played way too stereotypically in an exaggerated cartoony kind of way. He constantly annoyed me when he was on-screen. Fortunately, the other performances were better with the standout being the always good Robert Downey Jr. Even the usually wooden Keanu Reeves worked well in his role.

Rating: Visually, Scanner Darkly would be a 8/10, story wise it would be a 6/10 so let's average it to 7 out of 10