Scanner Darkly is my favorite Philip K. Dick book and consequently I had very high hopes for this movie. It is the best adaptation of a PKD book thusfar, sticking very close to the source material, unlike Blade Runner and Total Recall. But the majority of my favorite scenes were absent from the film. Strangely, many of the scenes in the book which are mentioned in passing are explored in greater detail while the more fleshed out scenes were completely ignored. The scene with Freck and the being from between dimensions is the only scene in the film that is exactly like the book, word for word.

The most important part of Bob Arctor’s character development was rushed and requires you to have read the book to really understand what happened. The ending comes too quickly so it lacks dramatic punch.

Overall, it captures the ideas and the essence of the book: layers of drug-induced paranoia and psychosis, drug addled conversations, and inevitable despair. I was happy to see they retained Dick’s cautionary epilogue and the list of his friends lost to drugs. Robert Downey Jr. shines as Barris and Keanu Reeves is the old school Keanu, darker, free of the demands of having to be a blockbuster movie star.

Drey’s Top 10 Movies seen in 2006

1. Brick
2. Inside Man
3. Day Watch
4. Night Watch
5. Howl’s Moving Castle
6. The Chronicles of Riddick
7. Superman Returns
8. Scanner Darkly
9. Cars
10. Mission Impossible 3