Bizarre Experiment that somehow works...sort of

When I try to contemplate a movie that combines Philip K. Dick with Richard Linklater my mind starts to crack under the pressure. The cynical writer of dystopic science fiction combined with a throwback to hippies with lighthearted fair such as Dazed and Confused? Its like crossing Spielberg and Kubrick and I think A.I. stands as testament of how that went badly.

But the world of A Scanner Darkly is one in which America has lost the drug war and Linklater is definitely familiar with drugs in his movies. So perhaps the odd pairing can actually work. This is all thrown in with a bizarre form of animation that seems to just animate actual actors.

I guess in some ways the animation lends itself to drug hallucination and the very bizarre suits that the undercover cops where, not while undercover but while at the office discussing how to put a stop to drug dealers. The movie bounces all over the place left and right. It was at best an interesting experiment in film making and at worst incomprehensible mess of images and dystopic cynicism.