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A Scanner Darkly (2006)
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The work of novelist Philip K Dick has already been brought successfully to the screen with films like Blade Runner (1982) and more recently Minority Report (2002). This time The School of Rock director Richard Linklater uses the process of interpolated rotoscoping, which he pioneered with Waking Life (2001), to bring Dick's tale of a paranoid, surveillance-crazy near-future to life. The process paints over live footage to create animated action — a technique that certainly isn't new, but which Linklater has manipulated to create his own distinctive visual style. Here, the US conducts a war on drugs with the same zeal as its war on terror, and Keanu Reeves is an undercover narcotics officer whose disguise tool — a scramble suit — enables him to take on a new identity and infiltrate a drugs ring. This is a better, more commercial film than the rather wordy Waking Life, and technically it is stunning. But you can't help wondering whether fans of Reeves, Robert Downey Jr and the film's other stars might not prefer to see the actors themselves on screen, rather than their animated equivalents. DA
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Tell us what you think
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Running time
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96min
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Country of origin
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US
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Genre
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Animated Science-fiction Drama
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Original language
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English
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Screenplay
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Richard Linklater, from the novel by Philip K Dick
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Theatrical distributor
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Warner Bros
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UK cinema certificate
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15
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UK cinema release date
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August 2006
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Film certification logos reproduced by kind permission of BBFC |
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