s.Darko

First off the good news – s.Darko is not a complete travesty that besmirches the memory of Donnie Darko in a mindless cash-in that all involved should be ashamed of. However neither is its Donnie’s equal, even if it does copy that movie an awful lot. To be honest it would be almost impossible to make a sequel that works as well as Donnie Darko, as having seen Richard Kelly’s follow up movie, Southland Tales, I have a feeling that his feature debut succeeded more by luck than judgement.

The original is a movie that is remarkable for working on its own internal logic, with rules about what can and can’t happen that don’t really have any counterpart in normal life, or even frames of reference that the audience already know about (which is partly what makes it so difficult to work out what’s going on). It’s a brave trick it pulls and means that s.Darko is bound by similar rules, but its main flaw is sticking to them too closely.

From the ‘making of...’ featurette you get the impression that most of those involved were a bit reticent about taking on a sequel to a movie that’s beloved by fans and which is also so deliberately enigmatic that anything that follows is walking a tightrope. However the maker’s cautious attitude to s.Darko has ensured that at least they’re really thought about what they’re doing, even if they haven’t been able to bring much more to the table.

s.Darko follows Donnie’s younger sister, Samantha, once again played by Daveigh Chase, who’s now a teenager from a family that never came to terms with the death of her older brother being crushed by a jet engine. She’s heading to Los Angeles with her friend Corey (Evigan) when their car breaks down outside Conejo Springs. The following morning a meteorite destroys a farmer’s windmill, which kicks off a series of strange visions, where once again a time limit is put on the end of the world as death, fate and time travel all become intertwined between Samantha, Corey, a missing child and a disturbed Iraq War veteran called Jack (Lafferty).

The film’s greatest sin is that for much of the running time it seems like they’ve just spliced bits of the Donnie Darko screenplay together in a different order and set it in the desert. s.Darko has very little new to add because it’s ridiculously careful not to tread on or alter the ideas of the original. It even feels the need to replace Patrick Swayze’s dodgy self-help guru with a dodgy evangelical preacher (Matthew Davis) and a religious zealot (Elizabeth Berkley – probably trying to wash away the sins of Showgirls).

There are a couple of interesting ideas. While both Donnie and Samantha have to deal with plenty of existential teen angst, the bringing in of a Gulf War veteran opens up all kinds of interesting possibilities, but Iraq Jack is such an over the top character that the film does slightly squander what it could have had. Ultimately s.Darko’s only real concession to opening up the Donnie Darko world is that whereas in the first movie Donnie was the only one following destiny water tentacles, meeting giant rabbits and trying to figure out how to stop the world ending, here you have three people whose fates are interlinked, each of them handling the demands of destiny differently. Even so, every time the film looks like it’s going to do something genuinely interesting, it backs off, seemingly terrified of raising the ire of fans of the original.

The result is that s.Darko isn’t bad, but it is pretty much irrelevant. Thankfully it looks good, doesn’t outstay its welcome and does nothing that’s going to upset anyone too much (although its very existence will be enough to piss of some people). However it’s unlikely to do all that much to please them either. It is a movie that just sort of happens, so that if you are intrigued by this sequel (and the sub-heading ‘A Donnie Darko Tale’ suggests there’ll be more to come) you probably won’t mind spending 99 minutes watching it. That said, you’d probably have a better time rewatching the original, as there’s not a lot the follow-up has to add and it’s not as good a movie.

The s.Darko disc does offer a few okay special features, such as an audio commentary that’s surprisingly thoughtful and makes you wish that what the director talks about actually came across when you watch the movie, as he’s really thought a lot about what he’s doing, even if the result is a bit wet. There’s also a couple of decent featurettes, much of their running time covering what a bad idea everyone in front of and behind the camera thought a Donnie Darko sequel was and how they reconciled this to come up with the film. It makes an okay package for movie that wouldn’t be too bad if it could find a reason to exist.

Overall Verdict: A film that is so careful that it ends up offering little we haven’t already seen – but to be honest, for a straight-to-DVD sequel, it isn’t bad and is certainly better than many Darko fans will have feared.

Special Features:
‘The Making Of s.Darko’ Featurette
‘Utah Too Much’ Music Video/Featurette
Audio Commentary With Director Chris Fisher
Deleted Scenes

Reviewer: Tim Isaac