A Scanner Darkly (**)

Sometimes you just have to admit that you don't "get" a movie when you watch it. I know it's difficult and you don't want to seem like an idiot, but that may explain why you didn't like it. I mean, A Scanner Darkly is obviously well constructed, it's interesting and complex, and the acting's good. It's based on a Phillip K. Dick story and directed by Richard Linklater. Pedigree all around. But I wasn't impressed. I wanted to like it, but I just didn't "get" it. And that's okay. It happens. I think that the story is too confusing for its own good, and the animation strikes a weird balance between cool and annoying. I hated Linklater's other film with rotoscoping, Waking Life. That film was all talk, no action, and A Scanner Darkly verges on becoming a dangerously boring talkfest at times as well.