Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

This is certainly very much like Waking Life, in the obvious, similar ways. But while both are sort of hard to get into in their own ways, the plot here is just way too complicated. Maybe rewatches are needed, but a plot still needs to engage even if we don't fully get it or understand it, we need to be engaged and interested enough to continue. I wasn't totally bored, but it was really hard. If anything, the animation style is what made me stay with it, and it does get better as it goes on, more interesting to the point that I can say I barely, mildly liked it. The performances are pretty fantastic, especially Winona Ryder, and Reeves is as unengaging as ever.

When i first saw "A scanner darkly" i was hypnotized ... for the first 15 minutes! Then, whenever i saw the changing face i could Smash my TV! The optic drives me crazy and i don't like that changing. That's awfully and no special enjoyment to me. I hope, that i never have to watch this movie again. I surely can't understand, how someone could give this movie more than 5/10 but there's a few People with better nerves out there for sure. I've seen Posters from "Waltz with Bashir", which is the same photoshoped animation look. First i wanted to see it, but now i avoid watching it, cause i fear, the makers could have made something similar to this movie. That maybe unfair, but i don't want to waste time and Money. Not a good movie for advertising this Animation-style!

I first saw this film in 2007 when I hired it from my now-defunct local Blockbuster because I was interested in seeing what the rotoscoping technique looked like. I bought the DVD a year later. Upon seeing it, I was very impressed with the graphics and animation because they were rather lifelike due to them being traced over live-action footage. The funny thing about this film is that it was set seven years from its year of release (2006), thus making it take place in, wait for it... 2013 (although this fact may seem dated in many years to come).As well as the graphics and animation style, the other positive aspects are the well-known cast of Keanu Reeves, Woody Harrelson, Winona Ryder and Robert Downey Jr, although to me Rory Cochrane is a lesser-known addition to the cast since I hadn't heard of him prior to seeing this film. In spite of this, he played a decent Charles Freck but Reeves as Bob/Fred/Bruce and Ryder as Donna/Hank/Audrey were the standouts while Downey Jr was comical as James Barris. The dialogue had a fine mix of darkness, poignancy and humour while a few of the visuals were bizarre (a policeman shooting Freck's head off in his imagination and Freck encountering an alien-like creature with multiple eyes later on in the film) in a good way. I also liked the animation and appearance of the scramble suits. The story was hard to follow at times, but I know for sure its basic premise was Arctor being addicted to Substance D and eventually going to rehab under the name of Bruce.All in all, this is a visual treat that inspired me to make my own short rotoscoped film as part of my animation course at university. To summarise, the strongest points were the cast, the dialogue, animation and graphics. 8/10.

This movie fails like an iron kite: it just has a serious design flaw. Usually I could find some saving grace about a bad movie. Most often I think I could see what the director or scriptwriter probably intended, especially when they make an effort to select rich source material, like a Philip K. Dick's most personal story, and then film it in such a different way. That's not true here. I can't really see what Director/Screenwriter Richard Linklater intended with this adaptation. There's no spark; I can't admire anything here. It's one thing to not be impressed, but instead of wishing scenes were better, or wishing he had given the script just one more rewrite, I wish he hadn't tried at all. Why? First let's talk scenes that come to nothing. Such as the car being sabotaged. Don't get your hopes up, it doesn't lead to anything. Or ones like the bicycle scene, where the stoner humor was so lame Cheech & Chong should have busted them. Then whimsical scenes like James Barris' (Robert Downey, Jr.) "silencer," designed for slapstick, ends with a lame punchline and also leads absolutely nowhere. How about characters that also go nowhere? Major characters, like Ernie (Woody Harrelson), who simply drop out of the plot never to return. In his last scene, he almost died, setting up some major character conflict. But I guess it wasn't important after all. Sorry I almost got interested. How about other, purportedly important characters who seem like walk-on parts, like Winona Ryder's? The film has no flair or style to it. When I saw the look, I thought things would bet interesting once the hallucinations started, but so little was done with the animation (except for the scramble suits, interesting for ten minutes), I began to wonder if the entire purpose of the rotoscoping was to camouflage Keenu Reeves' usual flat performance and immobile face. If so, it didn't work. He was still uninterested, and uninteresting. When it comes time for some philosophical narration, his flat voice just does wonders for it. It's like Linklater wasn't happy that I just didn't understand it, he wanted to make sure I didn't care, either. I swear, if this movie didn't have the muddy, slapdash animation, nobody whatsoever would be praising it. It would universally be considered a bomb. The Philip K. Dick fans would be calling it a total misfire, the animation fans (a lot of crossover there) of course, would say nothing, and drug crowd (pro- and anti-) would both admit it's dull and jumbled. I could think of only two things I liked: Robert Downey Jr's performance as Barris (though he does seem to be doing a Jeff Goldblum imitation), and a suicide scene that was hilarious. Even with the latter, though, the character offing himself seemed to have almost nothing to do with the plot. I can't figure out why he was in there to begin with. However, those count for little in a movie that's so boring. Even a hundred minutes felt long when most the scenes seemed like they could be cut without losing anything. It's talky. There's no action. There's no chemistry between Keenu Reeves and Winona Ryder. Add to that the fact that the characters don't look real enough, and the animation doesn't make them more intriguing. It simply gets in the way of connecting with any of them.Generally, I don't take drugs, don't recommend them, but if you're given a choice between meth and this movie, take the meth.