This is about S. Darko: A Donnie Darko Tale (released in 2009), or, as the title cards have it:
Intro
The Bad
The Middle Ground
The Good
Judgment
Closing
Intro
This movie is quite curious to me. If taken by itself, as a standalone story, then it's a movie that more or less holds up, something that might've been a light weight Donnie Darko, if it had been released in its place. The plot does bear some similarities.
S. Darko follows Donnie's sister Sam (played by Daveigh Chase, reprising the role of Sam) as she and her friend Corey (played by Briana Evigan) drive from Virginia to California to become dancer's at Corey's dad's club. Of course, that wouldn't make for much of a time travel movie. So, the girls' car breaks down, and they wind up in the town of Conejo Springs, Utah. They get involved with the townsfolk, and some strange things go down. Ultimately leading to the girls going their separate ways.
Revealing the ending of the movie isn't entirely necessary, because it follows the same arc as Donnie Darko. If you haven't seen Donnie Darko, then go here and watch the viral video marketing campaign, videos number two and three give a solid idea of what happens in S. Darko.
The Bad
At any rate, being a sequel, and a sequel to a movie that had so much going on in it, the bar is set fairly high.
This is most true of the mythology of the "series."
A lot of what S. Darko revolves around is the idea that time travel is possible because time travel involves a version of a person or thing cutting into the present dimension from another dimension that is somehow "the future." It's a pretty cool concept of an old sci-fi standby, and just as in the original, it's visualized in a neat way.
Yes, the time streams from chests and TV reach-ins and such are all there, plus shimmering dimensional walls that make sure that people from the present dimension don't come into direct physical contact with beings from the "future" dimension.
But the problem with this movie, from the perspective of the mythology of the "series," is that it doesn't develop it. If you watch Donnie Darko, and then watch this movie directly afterwards, you'll see the same things being established and a lot of parallels between the movies' characters and situations.
One character is better off dying, another character goes too far, and at least one character is left having to figure things out and deal with the ripples of a supernatural event.
The shape of the plot itself is also similar, the difference being that what happens after a character chooses to die seems to be better than what had happened when he chose not to.
But this change doesn't really have the rippling effect that the first movie's did. There's no emotionally scarred younger sibling to absorb the shock and be moved by the tragedy as was the case with Sam after Donnie's death, only a shift in who shoulders a supernatural responsibility.
And what is that responsibility you ask? A meteorite that gives its owner some kind of terrible rash. Why does it give them this rash? What is the rash's purpose? None of the characters in the film seem to know, and neither do I.
And that's the movie's greatest failing. A sequel to a movie that presented a world where the metaphysical is real and the fourth dimension has meaning beyond an abstract notion isn't one that should just be a rehash with sexy teens. And that's essentially what S. Darko is.
But.
The Middle Ground
The characters are at least believable (it *is* set in 1995), and there are some okay exchanges between them (Justin: "Why are you looking at me funny?" Sam: "Why are you looking funny?"). Some of the characters are a little bit clichéd - the town badboy/mechanic, the religious man with a sordid past, the conspiracy nut, the nerd.
But then there are two characters who are also fairly conventional, but might have made the movie more interesting had there been more attention paid to them. Iraq Jack (aka Justin Sparrow, played by James Lafferty) is one of them, and Officer O'Dell (played by Bret Roberts) is the other.
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Justin Sparrow is the poster child for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), and a veteran of Desert Storm. But his social maladjustment makes him the closest thing to a truly alienated character in the movie. This position also makes him akin to Donnie in the first movie.
Sparrow's get up, and his living like a hobo confirm him as a dweller on the edge of society and make him the perfect candidate to explain, or have his plot explain, just how time travel works in these movies, or at least why things are blipping into our dimension and leaving people dead.
This promise is almost fulfilled when it's revealed *spoilers!* that Justin Sparrow is indeed the grandson of Roberta Sparrow, the author of the book the "The Philosophy of Time Travel" from the first movie.
Focusing the story on him, or having him meet a past/future self who isn't of a fragmented mind and then having him, or maybe meeting his grandmother and having her, explain just what's going on would have been great. Such a move would also add to the story, and let us into it.
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The other of the two eccentric characters who could've had more done with them is officer O'Dell. He seems like a stereotypical small-minded, small town cop, but his style suggests that there's something more at play. Though he seems to be the only cop in town, he still stands out in his shorts and flat-top haircut.
So why is he different? Why does he make himself unique among a uniformed profession? Maybe it has something to do with all the inter-dimensional stuff going on in the movie? Maybe he was dropped as a child? Maybe he refuses to conform because of a deep-felt need to be "hip"? Maybe he too is a veteran of Desert Storm and his odd style is his means of coping? The thing is, he's presented, but kept in the margin.
All the same, those two characters are examples of what's good in this movie. But, as with last week's review of "The Seeker: Dark is Rising," they're also underdeveloped. What is good and at least given some development follows.
The Good
The movie didn't move the overall plot of the "series" forward, but it's neat to see a female protagonist. And there's an undeniable "Twin Peaks"-esque feel to the parts that feature piano and strings in the background. If nothing else, the movie should be regarded as a pretty decent example of how to create atmosphere throughout a film. Maybe not maintain it (it *is* the 90s, so 90s rock and pop work their way into audiences' ears, too), but certainly to create it.
The movie's effects are also well done for a movie made for a straight-to-DVD release. Some of them look like they might've been made in the 90s themselves, but that quality just adds to the movie's charm. And the sequence with an infinitely flowing tesseract late in the movie is definitely worth the wait.
So, is this one quite so bad as the critics at Rotten Tomatoes say it is, awarding it a whopping 0%? No. Not quite.
But I wouldn't give it anything beyond a 35%, myself. So, watch it if you want to see a variation on Donnie Darko, if you want to let yourself dream about what this series could've been for an hour and forty minutes, or if you never saw the original at all and don't want to reach that far back in time.
Otherwise, S. Darko doesn't have much to offer. Ultimately, the movie raises the same questions as the first movie did (and some of its own, too) but it doesn't offer any new answers.
Judgment
So, Freya, heavy hearted I say to you, let this one lay. But maybe move it into the shade so that the sunlight won't rot it quite so quickly as the rest of the fallen still littering the field.
Closing
If you loved S. Darko and think that there should be another, believe that S. Darko should never have been made, or like/don't like my headings experiment, just let me know in a comment. And follow my blog - I'll follow yours back.
Next week, I post my final logical look at the option of teacher's college, Wednesday will see an article about what the "Prepper" movement seems to be appear here, and, come Friday, I'll post a review of Immortals.
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