Linklater never pretends that he has all the answers, but he asks the questions in such an interesting, elegant fashion that you'll be glad you came along for the ride.

Full Review | Mar 24, 2007

As A Scanner Darkly proves, Keanu is the Coolness -- passive blankness, leaden line delivery, and all. Let's hear it for the vague blur.

| Sep 23, 2006

It is not a great film, but an insidious one, the sort that gets under your skin. It leaves you scrabbling at aphids, hoping they really are in your imagination.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 19, 2006

Its intelligence makes it near-essential viewing.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 18, 2006

Wondrously attractive, all the more so for the avoidance (with one or two exceptions) of extrovert Waking Life-style set-pieces.

| Aug 17, 2006

It's never less than incredibly beautiful to watch.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 15, 2006

Mr. Linklater emerges once again as the Austin auteur par excellence, even if A Scanner Darkly is set in a ratty precinct of Orange County.

| Jul 27, 2006

Would be significantly more wearisome...were it not for Linklater's ability to tap into his source material's atmosphere of unsettling paranoia.

| Original Score: B | Jul 24, 2006

The first film to capture the author's transience and his art.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Jul 14, 2006

Here's a guy willing to take risks, willing to tackle challenging material, willing to assume his audience has a brain. Unfortunately, his audience's collective brain is going to be hurting mightily for the first hour of this film.

| Original Score: C+ | Jul 14, 2006

Although the story is greatly enhanced by the mesmerizing visual design, it is also involving because of the duplicity and duality of the characters.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 14, 2006

The artiness gets in the way of thrilling plot twists; we're still trying to sort out images when we should be sorting out facts.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jul 14, 2006

Food for thought that's also a treat for the senses.

Full Review | Jul 14, 2006

Much like someone who doesn't realize how high he is, A Scanner Darkly talks too much and doesn't say enough.

| Original Score: B- | Jul 13, 2006

As Dick's vision matches up with our times, so does director Richard Linklater's animation technique match the story's material. A Scanner Darkly is a joyful wedding of medium and message.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 13, 2006

The characters look as though they have been flattened inside a glass slide, a perfect visual reflection of their political and psychological binds.

| Jul 13, 2006

A very talky and curiously uninvolving film.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Jul 13, 2006

The film as a whole may be lacking in coherence and emotional punch, but there are some marvelous sequences.

Full Review | Original Score: C+ | Jul 13, 2006

A Scanner Darkly is a visually riveting mind-bender inspired by drug-induced experiences.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jul 7, 2006

As fascinating and intelligent as the movie is, A Scanner Darkly leaves you wishing it might have actually been less faithful in word, and more in spirit, to Philip K. Dick's universe of bugged-out paranoid weirdness.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 7, 2006