If ever a film did not need a sequel then Donnie Darko was that film. Hell, they even killed the main character off at the very beginning of the film (chronologically) with everything occurring being undone at the end so that the deep, well developed character of Donnie could save the world and, more importantly, the woman he loved, by sacrificing himself. Okay, it was a bit confusing with it’s multi layered madness, ‘Cellar Door’, unneeded characters and general wtf nature (Donnie dies after a jet is ripped from a plane in the future, transported through a worm hole into the past and is deposited onto the sleeping head of our hero. But if he died then who went forward and ripped the engine off of the plane?) But the confusion that it caused was all part of the drama. It feels like a play, a theatre piece that needs to be thought about and it does definitely succeed in making you think and looking at yourself, asking questions about how you live your own life. However, this film, albeit loosely, tidied up all the loose ends. With the main character dead, the world saved and normality restored, there were no new directions that the writers could go with the story, so much to the fans disappointment, no sequel was proposed by the production team and the franchise was neatly shelved away in the annuls of greatness.
8 years after Donnie Darko confused the globe, Silver Nitrate decided bought the rights to a sequel from the original production team at Pandora Cinema. With a willingness to splash big buck at what would turn out to be a huuuuuge flop, the sequel was written by a completely different writer and directed by a totally different director, making the two films completely different in all but title. The original director/writer was Richard Kelly, who has a distinguished career in making good films and has claimed 8 awards for his troubles. This man is so cool he’s currently affiliated with the production of ‘Pride and Prejudice and Zombies’. The sequel was written by a man by the name of Nathan Atkins, who is really not that bad a writer, I mean he wrote ‘Super Tanker’.....Look, he may not be the best writer, but he Directed and produced the film ‘24’ and a number of episodes of ‘Masters of Horror’. This film is nothing like either of those examples, but I’m trying to be fair, because I am a nice man. Honestly.
This film focuses on the life of the younger sister of Donnie, because when you watched the original you really thought she was a strong character that deserved a film specifically for her. I actually don’t remember her in Donnie Darko except for her small part in a scene where the family have a fun little argument about ‘Sucking a F*ck’. That’s her whole, successful, career in a nutshell, a silent bystander in a rather silly, character developmental moment for Donnie that had no focus on her at all. She left such an impression on me, can you tell?
The film begins with his sister, now 9 years older, having run away from her broken home and her dead brother’s memory. This seems like its trying to give the film a whole new direction and to give the relatively undeveloped character of S.Darko another layer, but the truth is that all but one of the original actors told this film to sod off so the writers and producers had to make a massive change to the original story plan and make the film totally extroverted from the original settings. So we see her and her friend, or lover, or whatever she is, driving, Ballad music video style, through long, empty stretches of Desert road, that every so often is cut off with random, attempted artsy shots of sunsets and trees. Her companion is, for the most part, a mystery. At the time of writing, I have no idea whether she is Sammy’s lover, her friend, a cousin, a co-worker or someone who kindly picked up a hitchhiker. But don’t worry, she’ll be dead soon.
The original film was successful because of its unexpected ending, ergo the death of a main character. Yet this film seems to enjoy the premise and seeing how it was successful in the first, the second begins with an Iraq vet (because making fun of war heroes isn’t something that only the Seattle PD can undertake) being saved from an asteroid falling on the windmill that he had decided to live on, by a ghostly, dead eyed, horror-make-up’d Sammy. And herein lies my my second major grievance with this movie. Who the flaming hell is this girl? It’s never explained why she’s there, what she’s doing or why this shell shocked, traumatised veteran is seeing her. Anyway, she worm holes him to around a mile away safer than he was and he proceeds to go slightly more insane from here on in.
The two girls then arrive into town and get to see the excitement the asteroids falling has caused and we then get introduced to the 3rd major grievance this film has: The nerd character. He buys the rock for around $500 and then decides, that rather than scientifically quarantine the alien, potentially dangerous rock, he will take it home with him in his car. I’m also going to tell you what will happen to this character now because it’s quite literally bursting to come out of me. He gets infected with an alien parasite that causes massive wells to form all over his body and he then loses control of his body at the very end of the film and tries to attack Sammy. It was the worst twist ending for a character storyline that I have ever heard of, except maybe the whole series being a dream, but that was ‘Dallas’ where everything could go and be accepted as plausible.
The film has a massive attack of ‘copy the original’ syndrome where all the good elements of the first film are used too much, blown up into large proportion and made far less effective. For example, the first movie has the effective use of a giant, 6 foot tall man in a rabbit costume, Frank. This is explained very well as being the guy who Donnie shoots after he ran over his girlfriend and it fits with the rest of the film perfectly. This sequel decides that the rabbit was good, so they included it, with the dead image of Sammy convincing him to make a Rabbit mask out of sheet metal and wear it. This poses two questions;
1: Why?! And...
2: How does she know about the rabbit? How does anyone know about it?! It was a figment of Donne’s imagination so how will Sammy, the ghost or anyone know its meaning.
The film makers also really seemed to like the twist where Donnie died at the end, so they use it twice. And that first time they use it is only a third of the way through the film. Oh, and this time, it’s not done to save universe, or because their survival doomed all of mankind, it is a conscious choice made to save another. So it’s no longer magic, time travel or other things, it’s now the power that the dead image of Sammy possesses and grants to you when she visits you in your dreams. The first time it gets used it was so silly and ineffective I couldn’t believe it had been one. Rather than see Sammy killed in a car that her friend had talked her into. Okay, this would be a good scene if it wasn’t a really quick, choppily edited, mish mash of artistic shots that make no sense. The second time it is used it is, again, used as a giant reset button. The first film made this seem like a bad thing, with all the good Donnie had done and his love being reset a lonely, friendless girl, yet in this it just seems like a slightly better option. At the end we only see the consequences of the film results, not in the world being destroyed dramatically, but with a few, relatively small asteroids fallings. This isn’t a serious, end of the world scenario and is rather a damp squib after the setting up of so many problems that were uncovered by Sammy.
With the reset switch pressed, the vicar won’t be an ousted paedophile (like Patrick Swayze in the first film), the kid he captured would still be dead and we wouldn’t see the few, pretentious shots of Sammy at the bottom of a swimming pool fully clothed. Also, the main character isn’t the one who makes the ultimate sacrifice. It’s the war vet, not Sammy, who saves the world, and Sammy’s entire plot line isn’t actually necessary for the story to progress. What was the point of that film?
This film was a disappointment. Not just for, or for the 70 people who saw this in UK cinema (seriously, this film took only £777 in the UK) but mostly for the name ‘Darko’. The film was almost perfect, but this film hung onto the name and proceeded, like a leech, to suck the life and fun out of the original, before leaving, the sum of the two films less than the original. This film is cinematic cancer. And I feel like shooting myself for using that term.
Over and Out.
