Cast Daveigh Chase, Briana Evigan, James Lafferty
Director Chris Fisher
Rating 18+
S Darko doesn't seem so much like a Hollywood sequel, it seems rather to be a piece of fan fiction, offering an amateurish extension of the Donnie Darko brand.
Not a particularly successful film upon release in 2001, Donnie Darko gained something of a cult following, to the extent that even without the original writer, director, and all but one member of the cast (who was 11 years old when the first film was made), a sequel was perhaps inevitable.
However, franchise strategy has failed commercially in this instance, as S Darko was released direct to video in the US. It might be one of the worst scripts in recent memory, with all the impenetrability of Donnie Darko, and none of the dark atmosphere and enticing mystery. The one thing S Darko retains from its predecessor is a set of rabid fans, who no doubt will be disappointed by this half baked redux with its laughably bad dialogue.
While film is a collaborative art form, it's hard not to blame director Chris Fisher for the movie's lack of cohesion. Most of the performances in the film are cartoonish and overacted, and seem to fall into two categories: impossibly cool and withdrawn, in a way that can only be meant as a misguided tribute to the teenagers of Twin Peaks, or nerdy in a way that would be more at home in an episode of Saved By the Bell.
Ostensibly, S Darko takes place about a decade after the original film, which was a period piece set in 1988. Whereas Donnie Darko was about a very specific moment in time, this one feels vaguely contemporary, even though it's supposedly the late 1990s. While the original traded on a sense of time and place that was instantly recognisable to those of us who lived through it, S Darko feels as if it takes place nowhere at no particular time - a dangerous proposition for a time travel movie. The only player to return from the original film is Daveigh Chase in the title role of Samantha Darko, younger sister to the Gyllenhaals/Darkos in the original film. Some viewers might recognise Chase from her role as Rhonda Volmer on HBO's Big Love, a character to whom she lends a perfect blend of naivete and malice.
In S Darko, Chase's impish qualities are more distracting than anything, and while she has presence on screen, her character is woefully ill-defined. In terms of both her reprisal of the role, and the film itself, S Darko should never have been allowed to reach adolescence.
