S. Darko [DVD]

In 2001, Donnie Darko surprised audiences with a surreal story of a troubled teenager whose world wasn't quite what it seemed. Despite critical acclaim, the movie became more of a cult classic, slowly building an audience on DVD. A follow-up director’s cut showed that even the movie’s director, Richard Kelly, may not have understood what he created with the initial movie, watering down many of the surreal elements that made the movie such a fantastic watch. Now 20th Century Fox brings a follow up direct to DVD story about Donnie’s sister, S. Darko, and the execution of the sequel is just as bad as the idea sounds.

The movie picks up seven years after the death of Donnie in the first movie. His sister Samantha (Daveigh Chase, reprising her original role), has never quite felt the same since the loss of her brother. She’s now a runaway, giving the story a chance to be a bit of a road trip between Sam and her friend Corey (Briana Evigan). It also removes Sam’s story from requiring the other high profile actors that played Donnie’s family (Mary McDonnell, Maggie Gyllenhall, etc).

The two girls wind up stranded in a small Midwestern town following some car trouble, where events start to occur that resemble those in Donnie Darko. Instead of Sam being visited by a haunting rabbit figure like her brother however, a bludgeoned version of Sam is the haunting figure, appearing before “Iraq Jack” (James Lafferty), a crazed Iraq war vet most of the town has written off. Don’t worry - the demented bunny still appears, with Iraq Jack building a mask at the haunting Sam’s bidding. Why? No real reason, but what’s a “Donnie Darko tale” without some tribute to Frank.

That Frank reference is actually something that plagues all of S. Darko. None of the weird stuff that’s going on is paid much attention to. Donnie found wonder in the things he was discovering, enough wonder that there was a mystery in the events for the viewer to analyze and uncover. Here, it’s assumed that you’ve already analyzed it in Donnie Darko, so the same things (the bunny, those Abyss creature-like tendrils leading people along, and even that countdown to when the world will end) are just presented matter-of-factly, without any wonder to them whatsoever. The whole mysterious element of the story has a distinct feeling of “been there, done that,” unless, of course, you haven’t seen Donnie Darko, in which case, you’re going to have no clue as to what’s going on here.

At times the movie attempts to emulate its predecessor, forcing other links between the movies, such as an odd visual style, or giving one of the characters the last name of Sparrow, connecting him with the time-travel expert of the first movie (whose book has apparently been passed from Donnie to Sam). The result is a picture that feels incredibly empty by comparison, and those comparisons are impossible to avoid because of the approach that’s been taken with both script and picture in this sequel.

On top of losing all of the mystery from the first picture, S. Darko takes some great leaps to tell what little story it has, none of which makes sense in hindsight. Again, the story plays with alternate universes like the previous picture, but that doesn’t help explain away giant leaps in logic. Prime example: After Sam dies (yup, dead less than halfway through the picture), her friend goes to the library to look up things about Donnie’s death, because for no reason whatsoever, she’s convinced there’s a connection between the two deaths. The leap in logic is tenuous at best, and the presentation makes me think there may have been some deleted material that was originally in the script that made holes like that make sense. The device behind Sam’s return to the movie reeks of padding, as if the original movie wasn’t long enough so they had to add an extra loop in to things. Of course, as this is a time travel/alternate world story, very little of what happens will matter by the end since it can so easily be undone.

Richard Kelly proved himself to be a bit of an artist with Donnie Darko. Watching S. Darko feels like watching a different artist attempt to recreate the style and meaning of someone else. The result is something that resembles the original image, but lacks the depth or meaning of the original. Considering Kelly himself has diluted his own artwork, how could anyone else think they could capture the success of Donnie Darko? This picture proves they shouldn’t.

On the Disc:

Since S. Darko strives for such a unique visual style at times, the visuals are important. The DVD looks alright, although it’s a bit grainy at times. If you’re interested in checking out S. Darko, you may owe it to yourself to aquire the high definition version, which probably has a crisper image than the upscaled DVD.

As far as bonus material goes, you’ll find a fair amount here. There are some deleted scenes, most of which were rightfully excised from the final cut, with several of them containing some pretty ridiculous dialog. A “making-of” featurette plays more as a promotional video than anything of huge value, although there is an adequate commentary track to provide some insight as to why/how the movie was made. Finally, another featurette features a song (“Utah Too Long”) that was written by the cast and crew during the production; a clear indication that just about everyone involved could have put more effort into this production. The theatrical trailer, as well as a slew of trailers for other releases, round out the bonus material.