S. Darko

I am an oddball in that I have NOT seen "Donnie Darko" yet I watched "S. Darko". This is because I have an odd obsession--to see as many of the films from the Bottom 100 list on IMDB as I can. I also decided NOT to see the original film because from what I read, folks who loved the original (and it seems to have a cult-like following) absolutely hated this sequel...and I wanted to see if the sequel might be better if you never saw the first. So is this film bad enough to be #88 on the list? No...while it IS a terrible film in many ways, there are definitely many worse films that this one...not exactly a glowing endorsement.

The biggest problem about the film are the two female leads. Both play characters who are annoying jerks....and any film with annoying jerks in the lead faces an uphill battle. In addition, the acting of many (including one of the male leads) is terrible. They or the director seem to think that talking monotone and emoting very little is the epitome of cool. Instead, I just found the acting (like the characters) to be super-annoying.

As far as the plot goes, there are a lot of weird dream-like warnings about some pending apocalypse in a rural town in the American West (it was filmed in Utah). The special effects were very interesting...but the story was confusing and silly.

Overall, a film that I didn't like at all but TECHNICALLY it isn't completely terrible.

I was honestly shocked that this film was actually worse than I was expecting it to be. It really seems like the writer and director got hired for the job, watched about half of the first film before they got bored, and then set off to make something roughly similar. Awful dialogue, careless (and painfully obvious) anachronisms, and some jaw-droppingly bad CG effects. I'd be willing to bet they had more money to make this than Richard Kelly had to work with on the original, and none of it's up on the screen. Maybe it cost them a lot of money to license "Hobo Humpin' Slobo Babe" by Whale.

*cough* Anyway, as far as cash-grab sequels go this has to be one of the all-time worst. A suggestion: tape an episode of "One Tree Hill" or "Gossip Girl," then put on some red-and-blue 3D glasses, and pretend one of the cast members is saying stuff like "Remember the future" and "My farts taste like cherries." Then watch the show on rewind for about twenty minutes and do it all over again. Repeat for 102 minutes total, and you've had roughly the same experience. Utterly shameful.

As huge fan of the first Donnie Darko I was very excited to see this. It was such a shame that the original director didn't make this film. The film is trashy and brings nothing new to the table. It take a handful of special effects and concepts from the first one and turns it into a crappy teen flick. The main characters made me cringe and after the first half an hour I thought this is a disgrace to the original film.

This film is not worth wasting your time on. The sad thing is that some people will see this film without seeing the original Donnie Darko. This film should never have been made.

What? Oh S Darko? I thought you said Donnie Darko. Oh...well that changes things. Um... Let me take all of that back then.

OK on a serious note there are a lot of posts on here that will say that they A.) Were huge fans of Donnie Darko B.) Thought the girls were hot and scantily clad C.) Thought the effects were not so special d.) Thought this was kind of rehashed

I agree with all of these statements. I also tried looking at it like it wasn't involved with the first movie at all and you end up with a no so brilliant, watered down less than mediocre movie. The problem is this is a Donnie Darko movie. You have fans who have watched the original over and over, read countless summaries of not only the movie but the "mechanics" of how that universe worked and then came to your own conclusions. You have fans that (myself included) donned (no pun intended) the skeleton costume and grey hoodie for Halloween. When you try to add to a cult phenomenon like Donnie Darko, unless you do your homework, you are going to fall flat.

To me this movie felt like someone watched Donnie a few times, wrote down some key elements from the movie in a notebook and then tried to incorporate it into a new movie.

As a huge fan of the original I can't find myself "hating it" in the same way that I can't hate the Star Wars prequels, so I gave it a 3 out of 10. I don't want to betray it even though it betrays the original and its fans. It was by no means one of the worst movies I have ever seen, but it is a let down of a sequel. I also gave it a 3 because I understand what this movie was trying to do (involving others in the timeline plot to change destinies) but I don't think it was done well. You still have some of the mechanics involved in the first, although altered. Even the characters are somewhat the same (the sexual deviant priest vs the sexual deviant motivational speaker, etc)

Even some of the lines used are to try to get a reaction from original fans. It just comes off as a bad rip off.

When you were done watching the original, you felt as though you wanted to watch it again and learn more. You felt a sense of witnessing something special.

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.