'A Scanner Darkly': A dark ride on Substance D

Using the live-image "painted" animation technique of his 2001 head trip Waking Life, director Richard Linklater now applies it to a dark, dystopian near-future novel by the late Philip K. Dick, A Scanner Darkly.

Warner Independent Pictures 'A Scanner Darkly' B The verdict: A dark, futuristic tale of government spying, paranoia and drugs, all conveyed in mesmerizing live-action animation. Director: Richard Linklater Starring: Keanu Reeves, Mitch Baker, Robert Downey Jr., Winona Ryder, Woody Harrelson Run time: 100 minutes Release date: July 7, 2006 Rating: R for drug and sexual content, language and a brief violent image. See showtimes Meet the director Richard Linklater may be the best European director ever born in Texas. On the web Official movie site View the trailer    Trailers require Quicktime Rate 'A Scanner Darkly'   Go see it   Make it a matinee   Wait to rent   Don't bother Voter Limit: Once per Hour View Poll Results

There is no particular reason why the technique should yield an overly talky film, but that is what happens again here. And again, it is intriguing talk, even if much of the time, we are not exactly sure what is being said.

As in Waking Life, the animation is both visually interesting and dream-like in its effect. In addition, the film's plot calls for an undercover surveillance suit that constantly changes appearance, which alone justifies the cartoonish style.

Wearing such a suit is federal agent Bob Arctor (Keanu Reeves at his most monotoned), who lectures a group of squirming Scouts on the dangers of a highly addictive drug called Substance D. But in the middle of his talk, he loses focus, perhaps from the drug's effects.

Satellites around Arctor include his hopped-up, untrustworthy pal Barris (a well-cast Robert Downey Jr.), a lazy pothead (Woody Harrelson) and Arctor's girlfriend and drug supplier, Donna (Winona Ryder, in a welcome screen return, even if it is just animation).

The world of A Scanner Darkly takes place soon after a frustrated truce in the wars on drugs and terror, at a time when government spying, the loss of personal freedoms and public paranoia are rampant. Dick was nothing if not prescient.

Linklater's adaptation takes us on a hallucinatory ride, visually and verbally, which has its pleasures as long as you do not insist on understanding what is going on at every hairpin turn.