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Released by: 20th Century Fox
Released on: 5/12/2009
Director: Chris Fisher
Cast: Daveigh Chase, Briana Evigan, James Lafferty, Ed Westwick
Year: 2009
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The Movie:
This follow up to the sleeper hit that was 2001's Donnie Darko won't make a whole lot of sense if you haven't seen that earlier film. In fact, even if you have, there are parts of it that'll leave you wondering…
Set in July, 1995, seven years after her brother Donnie was killed by a jet engine that fell out of the sky, we meet up with Samantha Darko (Daveigh Chase) who, along with her friend, Corey (Briana Evigan), has split from her Virginia home in order to head to California where she hopes to get a job as a dancer at Corey's father's nightclub in Los Angeles. On the way, their car breaks down in the middle of a desert and they wind up stuck in a Podunk town where Corey seems quite content to party with the local guys, Randy (Ed Westwick) in particular, and screw around at the town diner.
When a meteorite hits a windmill just outside town, a possibly insane young man who served his country in the first Iraq war, now dubbed Iraq Jack (James Lafferty), tells everyone that the world is going to end in only a few days. No one believes him of course, and in fact, they figure he's been responsible for some of the nastiness happening in the area as of late. Sam hallucinates during a sleepwalking bought that she has a connection with Jack and she's not entirely sure he's not on to something with his doomsday predictions - unfortunately for her, no one else seems to care, leaving only Samantha and the maybe/maybe not crazy dude to fix things.
S. Darko has some nice visuals and a few fun performances but the story never really goes anywhere and honestly, there are parts of the film that just do not make sense. Donnie Darko was a tough film to wrap your head around to a certain extent but it did definitely have a story whereas S. Darko feels like a whole lot of 'weird for the sake of weird' and little more. What works about the film are some great desert locations, shot out in the middle of Utah - the town is sad and small and doesn't have much going on and it makes for a decent place to set the story. Performance wise, again, we're fine. If no one really stands out as remarkable, no one stands out as terrible either and all involved to a good enough job with the material at hand.
And that there's the problem - the material at hand. Mix in some time travel elements that just don't add up, a couple of 'oh snap, you mean she was just dreaming?' moments and some completely illogical behavior and you're left scratching your head more than you're able to enjoy the film. On the surface it all looks fine, it's nicely shot and there are some interesting soul searching moments that actually allow you to feel sorry for Samantha, but this isn't enough to save what is otherwise a convoluted story that feels like little more than a quick cash in on an established cult film with a built in audience to go with it.
Video/Audio/Extras:
The 1080p 1.78.1 AVC encoded transfer on this Blu-ray release is decent enough. Detail level is quite good in the facial close up shots and in the day time out door shots, though during the darker indoor scenes and nighttime scenes shadow detail does tend to lack a bit. Some shots, for whatever reason, look noticeably softer than others. Color reproduction is quite good and there are no noticeable problems with edge enhancement or mpeg compression. Black levels aren't quite as strong as maybe they should have been, but at least they're stable enough. This transfer won't wow you, but it's passable enough.
S. Darko arrives on Blu-ray with an English language DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio track with optional subtitles available in English SDH, French and Spanish. A dubbed track is provided in French Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound but unless you're dealing with a language barrier, the DTS-HD track is really the way to go and Fox has done quite a good job here. The score has some nice resonance to it and the dialogue is always easy enough to understand. Rear channels are used nicely throughout the film to build some ambience and as goofy as the movie is, it's hard not to get at least a little bit affected when the weird creepy rabbit thing starts to talk. Bass response is a-ok and there are no issues to report with hiss, distortion or other annoying anomalies.
First up, as far as the extra features are concerned, is a commentary track from the film's director Chris Fisher, screenwriter Nathan Atkins and the film's cinematographer Marvin V. Rush. This is at times a fairly technical talk that covers compositions and what it was like shooting the picture. While they all talk about some of the trickiness that creating a sequel to Donnie Darko would entail, they never get too deep into it and honestly this would have probably been more interesting had Atkins been given more to discuss here.
Up next is a collection of six minutes of deleted scenes. These five scenes are all pretty brief and don't add or detract much from the picture as we see it in its feature form, though the alternate opening sequence is marginally interesting. Two featurettes are also included, the first of which is The Making Of S. Darko, a fifteen minute behind the scenes piece that features cast and crew interviews wherein everyone involved talks about how deep the movie is and how much they all enjoyed working on it. It's more or less a fluff piece. The second featurette is the six and a half minute Utah Too Much, which covers a goofy song that some of the cast members came up with while working on the film out in the middle of Utah. It's just not very good.
Some promo spots for other Fox Blu-ray discs are included as are some slick motion menus. The trailer for the feature, however, is nowhere to be seen. All of the extra material is presented in 480p standard definition.
The Final Word:
S. Darko just didn't manage to recapture that dark tone that made its predecessor so interesting. Add a few too many cliché moments, a meandering plot that doesn't really ever pick up enough steam to get moving and some goofy CGI effects and you're left with a pretty limp picture that doesn't actually go anywhere or really manage to entertain all that much.