As someone who is a fan of animation, I happened to cross this film and wondered why I hadn’t seen it before. A Scanner Darkly is one of those films that is pretty obscure, but it is full of top billed Hollywood talent like Keanu Reeves, Robert Downey Jr. (before Iron Man), Woody Harrelson, and Winona Ryder. As someone who believes that the best films are those that are different, this one is really trying something new.

Before I talk about this film is about, I need to talk about its style, as it is deliberate. The film uses an animation technique known as Rotoshop, using interpolated rotoscope, and the director, Richard Linklater, used it in Waking Life. The end result makes a movie that was filmed in live action, but it looks animated. In Waking Life, it looked like oil paintings come to live, but in A Scanner Darkly, it looks like comic book panels come to life.

The first thing that I have to say is I’m not certain whether this technique works. The advantage of this is you can just insert things in the scene that weren’t there before. An example of this is a scene in an office where some boxes are stacked up on the side, but it looks like the boxes were just drawn there.

Now, this film takes place in the future, not too far in the future, so the technology doesn’t look too advanced. In some cases, the method of animation makes some interesting devices that are clearly effects shots. I will say that the film underplays its futuristic look, as it could have had a very dystopian look that the animation could have provided by altering the backgrounds.

So, what is A Scanner Darkly about? Well, as I said before, it takes place in the future, and there is a drug that is popular known simply as Substance D. The film implies that 20 percent of all people in America are addicts, and honestly, it is kind of hard to imagine what the country would look like. As I mentioned before, the nation looks like of poor and destitute, and it looks like there is a little bit of the surveillance society going on.

Keanu Reeves plays Bob Arctor, who plays an undercover cop who has to wear this “scramble suit” when he is at the office. Apparently, his cover is so good even his bosses don’t know who he is. These scramble suits create this odd image as a mishmash of faces and clothes, and I am guessing that perhaps this is why the animation style was used to bring this effect to life.

So, Arctor is investigating these other addicts like James Barris (Robert Downey Jr.) and Ernie Luckman (Woody Harrelson), as well as Donna (Winona Ryder). Arctor is looking to see who is supplying Substance D, but he is in deep. Not only is Arctor getting feelings for Donna, but he is an addict of Substance D.

This is one of those films in which I got lost as far as what was going on, and when this happens, I always wondered how much this is deliberate as far as the director is concerned. This is kind of fun, because sometimes I have to wonder if I just missed something, or if the film has a deliberate hole in the story so I could figure out what is going on. So yes, I had to look up this film on Wikipedia to see what was up. I had theories about this film, because it is one of those films where you are not certain if what the main character perceives as real is real.

I’m not going to spoil how this film ends, but I had to look it up to see why it was a twist. I will say that at the end of the film is some kind of dedication to a lot of people who have been taken down by drugs. This film does not come off as a PSA, though.

The film is based on book by Philip K. Dick. At this point, I don’t know if I need to tell you who this author is, for he wrote Minority Report and Blade Runner. At least, the written material that became them. He was always good at figuring out the dark side of technology, and perhaps this is a warning of what law enforcement and drug addiction can do, maybe. Yeah, I’m not certain what the moral of this story is, or why is it called A Scanner Darkly, as opposed to A Scanner Lightly?