With the use of rotoscoping, this clearly was an experimental project, that didn't entirely paid off, by the end.

Its techniques and visual style help to make this an original movie to watch but when you look past this, the movie has little else to offer. The main story doesn't always work out that compelling, since most the time it is just meandering around and there isn't really being a good enough conflict in it story. At least not in its first half. It tries to create this but it doesn't ever get handled or developed properly enough and doesn't work out, until its last half hour, or so.

For me the movie was just too often about nothing. I know that it's supposed to about the slow descent of a drug addict, so not everything is supposed to make sense or follow a fast paced, action packed main story but surely they could had spiced up things a bit more at times, with some shorter sequences, some more interesting dialog and by letting its main characters do some more interesting stuff. Some character now instead come across as redundant ones and too many of them don't help to let its story move along.

And while the whole rotoscoping thing in this movie helps to make it unique and gives the movie a strong visual style, it was not something I was always too fond of or impressed with. Sometimes when the camera moved around the effects looked flat, literally. And besides, the whole effect looks like a layer, which you can simply apply to your movie, with any random big editing program. But apparently it all wasn't as easy as it looks, since post-production for this movie went on for 18 months.

The one thing I did really like about this movie, was Robert Downey Jr.'s performance. It was the highlight of the movie for me and the only thing that was truly fun and interesting about it. Lots of other great actors also appear in this movie but none of them works out as well as Downey Jr. did. And no, Keanu Reeves is not horrible, his character is just kind of flat but I think this was more due to its writing and directing approach, that deliberately tried to make his character one that was more of an introvert one.

An interesting movie experiment, that didn't entirely worked out but is still worth a watch.

6/10

http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

Saw this film today in a theater with no air conditioning on the hottest day of the year...pretty fitting for a movie about claustrophobic paranoia. I'd been looking forward to seeing this from the first time I saw the trailer. Whatever can be said about this film, there is no denying it's totally unique look. After awhile, you begin to get used to the rotoscoping and then suddenly, there will be something thrown in that will call attention to itself and remind you that you are watching animation. I am a fan of Dick's work, but have not yet read the novel upon which this film is based. Great performances all around and kudos to Linklater for his fantastic vision. The film could be considered a bit talky to the average moviegoer, but is much appreciated by fans of cerebral sci-fi. Fascinating premise is told through interesting blend of suspense and comedy. Not for everyone, but certainly worth a look. Certain to become a cult classic.

This is better than I expected; a 5 character piece that might be called Who's the Narc? But way to go at getting an anti-drug message into a movie that twenty year olds would actually want to see. I will definitely watch this again.

The morphing suit that the undercover cops wear to conceal their identities is a very well-integrated device, despite making for a lousy movie poster, that never created a single urge in me to see this. The minute it was introduced I knew the suit would involve a surprise revelation, just not this one. (Although I was grasping at it early on when I thought, "I wonder if it can also disguise gender or race...") The suit allows a female to have the presence of a male, and escape gender baggage, but has the related drawback of not letting Winona be on screen for most of "her" performance.

One needs to view no more than the preview to note the few benefits and copious problems of the rotoscoping technique; which represents something neither here or there. It solves problems of gradated shadows (always avoided in flat animation) and dynamic camera movement (ditto), but it's more like live-action than animation. It just feels like Linklater didn't think the thing was interesting enough to stand on its own. Every frame of it is beautiful, but the technique is little more than a filter you have to get past. Each frame has a paint by numbers quality and the movie avoids shooting dark, so everything can be outlined later. Some dark imagery would have helped the piece. Hair becomes particularly distracting. I immensely dislike the mangy beard that Keanu Reeve has been sporting in recent years. In rotoscope, I'm watching the movie noticing the weird, asymmetrical holes where it doesn't grow, thinking "Keanu, give it up, that's pathetic!" Watching a movie and being distracted by a beard is not good. And Winona's hair is always too much in motion. But Reeves assembles a character of some depth, and is a better actor than ever here. He is countless miles from the "Whoa..!" parody of himself.

I like Downey, but he again imposes his usual squirrelly, ironic act which is getting very old. How much do you have to loathe yourself to imagine you constantly have to be 50 percent more entertaining than is needed? And Woody Harrelson, here outfitted with a bad wig, is absolutely terrible.