"A Scanner Darkly" is one of Philip K Dick's best novels, and also probably had the best cinematic potential of all his previously unfilmed novels. All the more reason why this TV-movie version is very disappointing. It needed to be opened up in the way that Bladerunner was. Instead it was closed down to make a story that is much smaller than the novel. Most movies these days tend towards being overlong (Superman Returns, Pirates 2) - this was definitely too short. The animation was an interesting idea, mainly because it allowed the option of creating cityscapes and special effects that would have been expensive in photorealism. However, other than the scramble suit, this option was not exploited. It could have worked as an "Akira" style anime, but as it was the film would have been a lot more watchable in regular live action. Richard Linklater is great at some types of material: "Tape" is a good example, but not this. Ridley Scott, Alan Parker, Adrian Lyne, Steven Spielberg, Brian DePalma, Tarantino or David Lynch could have made something great from this novel. Philip K Dick, a notorious drug user, was able to write about a world fuelled by drugs from a position of personal insight, but his tremendous imagination made his writing transcend the milieu. Linklater's film comes across as a film made by and for stoners.