S. Darko - Eine Donnie Darko Saga

If you thought "How can they make a sequel to Donnie Darko?" then you should be warned. This movie fails as miserably as you would expect. It also lacks in the quality of the cinematography of the original. It is almost unwatchable.

The ending to the original Donnie Darko was absolutely superior. It absolutely completed the story and left the viewer to ponder the meaning and philosophical implications of the work quietly to themselves. There was no antagonist to be reviled from the dead to fight again and no antagonist, having saved the world once to be brought out of a failed marriage and rehab somewhere to save the world again. I do not mind watching movie series even movies such as Saw or Rocky. But Donnie Darko is not the type of movie that could possibly lend itself well to a series and it doe not deserve to be put in a category with those types of movies and the attempt to do so is a complete failure.

Before anyone gets on their high horse saying I am one of those Donnie Darko fans not giving this new movie a chance, I gave this film a chance and spent the five bucks to rent it straight away after learning it existed.

The only good thing about this film is that it ended. OK, that may be harsh, the film's colour and surrounding landscape it unfolds in is pretty cool but that is it. The only other interesting elements, whether technical in filming style or plot-wise of this film, were ripped straight from the first film. What was cool in Donnie Darko is merely imitation here.

The plot is weak and has logic holes which fail the Donnie Darko/tangent universe test from the first film. As fans of the original we cannot help but compare the two films because s.Darko centres on characters and memories from the first one and rotates on the principles that drove the original as well. How can you not compare the two? What almost borders on insulting in this film are the straight repetitions of acts, scenes and quirky characters from the first one replicated in this one. I don't want to spoil the film if you are drawn to sit and endure it but you'll see what I mean, you cannot miss the weak, formulaic repetition, especially if you are a fan of the original.

Basically, s.Darko is the same model car like Donnie Darko but has different paint colour and chokes along on a four-cylinder engine whereas the first one rumbled along on six.

S. Darko is one of many sequels that has no reason to have been created at all. But even if one puts the original film out-of-mind, and only look at the sequel on it's own merits, the movie still falls completely flat.

The film picks up 7 years after the original left off, Samantha Darko and her friend Corey are on a cross-country trip heading for Los Angeles. When car problems leave them stuck in a little town by the name of Conejo Springs (which is populated by a community of horribly written character's), the girls are forced to mingle with the townies, and Corey finds herself at home with the boozy losers, while Samantha, still in pain over the death of her brother (Donnie), finds herself drawn to the Outsider by the name of Iraq Jack, a disturbed Gulf War vet who has learned through bizarre visions that the world is coming to an end on July 4th, 1995.

It seems that Nathan Atkins is a fan of Richard Kelly's work (including Southland Tales because the character of Iraq Jack seems similar to the character 'Pilot Abilene' & the end of the world date being on 'July 4th') But Atkins can't write believable dialogue to save his life. And the director 'Chris Fisher' doesn't seem to understand what made the original film so good, which was the feeling of being able to connect with the characters going through something this crazy. And if the audience doesn't care about the characters on-screen it becomes very hard for them to feel any effect of the narrative structure.

S. Darko is a hollow cash-grab by producers who must have never understood what Kelly was going for, but they now control the rights to the Darko universe, and they're hoping to collect any profit from this wannabe Donnie Darko replica.

As soon as I had heard about this hybrid sequel (and it is a sequel), I immediately thought that they had gone and done it again, I thought they just couldn't help themselves, I thought that it was just another money spinner and it was produced to simply draw in the gradual pulse of Donnie Darko fans.

After watching it though, it really didn't disappoint, my initial gut instinct was right. This film follows in the footsteps of other previous solo films that they just couldn't leave alone.

This film has so many Donnie Darko cliché's, it's unbelievable, the visual effects (which I could have done myself), the stylised music of the time, the time lapse scenes (which are OVERUSED), the times caped school scene (with Tears for Fears)... Everything... Everything that made Donnie Darko the artistic and visually spectacular film it was, has been transposed to this and it has been transposed, woefully.

They have even cast a couple of Jake Gyllenhaal lookalikes for some of the parts, and there is NO way this is an accident, because they act so badly, they must have been cast on their uncannily resemblance to J.G.

It's a bit like when Dennis Leary, Ripped off Bill Hicks, it's rather sad seeing someone else trying to imitate someone else's joke, you still laugh at it for a minute, but afterwards, you just want your money back.

This film is a bit poo, I can't even comment on its "plot", because, you can see "the plot", has been moulded around the model of Donnie Darko, you can see that the plot was the last thing they thought about, which funnily enough, in a Donnie Darko fashion, was probably the first thing though about in Donnie Darko.

I don't know though, for some strange reason, this feels more like a bad re-make, than a sequel, and people probably will say something like "You have watch this movie, independently, don't think that it's a sequel to Donnie Darko, try to see it for what it is.", okay, that would be a fair thing to say. But as soon as you release a movie, with one of the same actors from the original, with the same title as the original (nearly), with the same freaking emblem as the original, pfft... well... You can't cook a cookie from a recipe and say it's your own.

Now, let's get to the acting. The acting is awful, there really doesn't seem to be any interACTION, between the actors, it just feels as though they are saying the lines to each other, it really does, there doesn't feel like there is any co-character development, there doesn't seem to be any rapport at all, and more importantly, there doesn't seem to a distinguishable emotion, throughout the movie, honestly, watch it... The best actor throughout, is one of the actors who hardly has a scene John Hawkes, from, From Dusk Till Dawn and Identity.

There are also 2 shady looking characters in the film, who don Men in Black attire. They look like two bloody elephants in a fridge, they really do, they look SO out of place and so uneasy on the camera, that they were probably just picked from the town that they filmed in, either that or they are two tecchies from the production team.

As I've said before, the production looks shoddy, it really does, the effects from Donnie Darko, looked much better and that was.. what? 8 years ago? And 8 years, is a long time in technological terms. Even in one scene (this is supposed to be set in 1995), you can see post 95 produced Cars in the background, and an up to date Budweiser sign.

(I wish I could do the time travel thing and go back in time and NOT watch this film.)

All-in-All, this film is bad, I suppose my advice could be to watch it with an open mind, but I would be misadvising you, this film is obviously aimed at making a few quid from Donnie Darko fans and with that in mind, I just can't get past the audacity of the reason for this film. It is a much asked question of films, especially sequels, but I am going to ask it anyway.

Why?

I have given this film a 4/10, and that is primarily because I think that the lead is hot, she walks around a hot state, with practically nothing on most of the time and the fact that she looks like Jessica Biel, that is how skin deep I feel, after watching this film, which is no doubt, how the producers thought throughout the process of making this film.

If you are thinking of buying this on DVD for a present for someone you know who is a Donnie Darko fan, then don't, A. It will disappoint them and B. It will only spur on, more crap like this.

And as for one KILLER line in the movie...

"Like... Drugs and Anus Sex!" Best line in the whole movie.

Oh my gosh. Why? I just don't get it. This has got to be one of the worst sequels ever made. Lets look at the list and take a look at everything wrong with this film. And by the way let me say i AM a big fan of Donnie Darko.

1. The acting is almost unbearable. 2. The story sucks... well if you even want to call it a story. 3. its so confusing and does not even come together in the end. 4. The characters are extremely unlikable if you liked these characters my heart goes out to you... but you have no brain. 5. SO MUCH LAME CGI There you go the top five list of why this movie is so awful. I give this film a F.