glowierin I'm going to go against the grain with this review.As a SEQUEL, this movie doesn't remotely live up to the original. Donnie Darko is a fantastic masterpiece. I am a Richard Kelly fanatic, and have literally delved myself into his world further than most people have. I've watched all his audio commentaries multiple times, bought the Donnie Darko book, read the original screenplay a gazillion times, and just generally fangirled to the point of embarrassing myself. I know Donnie Darko inside and out (as well as his other two films, Southland Tales and The Box).And that is why I enjoyed S.Darko. Is it a good sequel? No. (Donnie Darko didn't need a sequel). But as an homage, it's actually not bad. I was pleasantly surprised at how loyal Chris Fisher was at sticking to The Philosophy of Time Travel, and Richard Kelly's made up rules for that world. He was incredibly faithful and did a brilliant job in that respect.Also, the overall tone of the film matched Donnie Darko's tone, which is something that I felt was really important. Even the score and the soundtrack matched, which is no simple feat considering Donnie Darko had a score that was unique and unlike any I had ever heard.Most of all, the creativity that is shown in S.Darko really impressed me. Showing the story from the point of view of the Manipulated Dead instead of the Living Receiver was a wonderful choice that showed S.Darko wasn't just trying to be a Donnie Darko copycat. Also, the idea of a Tangent Universe within a Tangent Universe was interesting. Not my favorite thing about this film, but it was fun to think about.The character of Justin had to be my favorite thing about S.Darko. He was like Donnie in many ways, but he was also the opposite -- Donnie had many people in his life who loved and cared about him, and so he chooses to die at the end to destroy the Tangent Universe and save their lives. Justin, on the other hand, doesn't have anybody. Everyone around him treats him as an outcast and couldn't care less if he existed or not. And yet, at the end of the film, he still makes the choice to sacrifice himself to save everyone else. A truly heroic and tragic character (and I am a sucker for those).So, will you like S.Darko if you aren't a Donnie Darko die-hard? Definitely not. Will you like S.Darko if you ARE a Donnie Darko die-hard? Probably not. But are there redeeming qualities about this movie? Definitely and absolutely.

youkrava I read some of the reviews here but I decided to check the movie myself and all I can say is that I wasn't disappointed at all. I must admit that it is not as good as the original but it sure is a great movie.I would recommend to all Donnie Darko's fans who seem to hate this movie, to watch it again and consider once more if it really is as bad as you said the first time.If you think carefully although this movie takes many elements of the original it explores time joints even more.If they make a third Donnie Darko film I will watch it, no doubt, whether it is better than the original or not I don't care, I'm only interested in having a nice time.

toll-8 Let me start by saying, this film is the sequel to the brilliant Donnie Darko but don't make that reason force you to watch this. My advice is to avoid it at all costs.The film tries to be its predecessor but over complicates it, eradicates all sense of emotion and drama and casts actors who just cannot act. So basically the exact opposite to Donnie Darko. Sure that was complicated but the end sewed most things up and also it leaves so much lose that you want to watch it again and again with intrigue. This film however I barely made it through one full viewing. It is seriously bad.Right, it is about Donnie's sister, Samantha (Chase). She is in the first film but is eleven years old. Now she is eighteen and run away from home as her family has dismantled after her brother's death. As her and her mate Corey (Evigan) drive across country their car breaks down, leaving them stranded in a desolate town with weird town's folk. In this town lives a homeless Desert Ops veteran who has been having visions of Samantha telling him the world is going to end. When he sees her he tells her this and she begins to think about what this means. Next thing you know Samantha is killed but her mate is given the chance to go back in time and alter it so that she survives the car accident. I'm going to stop there for a second as this was a huge problem in the film. Her friend goes back into time but instead of preventing the car accident, she saves her friend and remains in the car that crashes. If she knows the outcome why doesn't she get out the car or even tell the car to go the other way. To me this was one of many major plot holes.Continuing on, Samantha is now alive and her mate dead but she isn't given the opportunity to save her friends life. We then interweave all the crazy sub-plots that involve a pointless town rebel, who has a brother who went missing along with another child, the town geek falling for Samantha and doing all he can to get with her and a man attempting to sell Christianity to her as well as having a strange relationship with one of the lost boys mother. What the hell! Donnie Darko had sub plots but they all related to the main plot. These ones just don't, and if they do the film could have done without them. Samantha then finds the missing boys although now dead, gets the veteran arrested and then has a date with the geek who seems to turn into an alien during a meteor storm. Then she rewinds to the beginning and decides to go home before this happens again. What a crock of pony. This tries to outdo the original and it really, really, epically fails. It is so bad.Nothing in this film makes any sense. Throughout I was puzzled as to what the hell was going on and at times I was even bored. All the characters are stereotypical and clichéd. They turn up at a desolate town and we have a geek, intact with glasses and high pants, the typical rebel, with sports car and beer and a weird religious nut. We also get a cameo from Elizabeth Berkley from Saved By The Bell, and her role is just pointless.Seriously never, ever, ever consider watching this film. The brilliance of the first one could be tarnished because of this dire sequel. We even get a reimagining of the bunny from the original and in this film it has no place, they have just brought it back to tie something in with the first. The director of the first reiterates that he had nothing to do with this film and has stated he wouldn't work with any of the actors who starred in this. If you haven't seen the first, watch it, you'll be intrigued, but don't bother with this. There is a very good reason it was released straight to DVD.

lost-in-limbo The original is a cult-favourite that has really grown a fan base, and the independent straight-to-DVD small-scale follow-up "S. Darko" feels more like homage to it than a straight-forward sequel. Although it's not without its problems, but I didn't find it as terrible as it's labelled to be. Still it's disappointing. Where as I found the "Donnie Darko" to feel fresh, snappy and intriguing… "S. Darko" was glum, ponderous and overcooked. It's much darker, but in that case it lost the personality that shined through "Donnie Darko" that made it easier to connect with the characters in mundane suburbia. That's not saying "S. Darko" is all bad, as I found the performances acceptable (even though no one really stood out) and the soundtrack / music score builds up that airy, melodic emotional attachment that also favoured the original film. It's stylishly done by director Chris Fisher with dynamic camera-work, which captured the beautiful Utah locations and the fashionable use of sped-up visuals gives that feeling that time does move fast despite not feeling it. It's visually appealing (namely the unconscious sequences), but during stages the mellow tailoring can leave the pacing to meander.The story continues seven years later with Donnie's younger sister Samantha on the road, trying to leave behind her past but it comes back to haunt her as car trouble causes her and her friend Corey (a spunky Briana Evigan) to be stranded in a small, quiet desert town. There she becomes entangled with the local inhabitants, in which through certain circumstances cause a chain of events that leads to the countdown to the end of the world.The past repeats --- the apocalyptic visions are back. Writer Nathan Atkins spins up some new angles, but also conjures up numerous links between certain story arches --- adding onto or evolving what we learnt from the original but never too much to take away from its mythological and open nature. It's just as knotty, but some sub-plots being a little too convoluted or thinly explained (like the missing children angle). There's even an unpredictable POV change in the story's structure which is jarring, but fits well due to the possibilities and ideologies created from this world of wormholes and time-travel cemented in teenage angst. The communication between the manipulative dead and living receiver is starkly done, but at times quite flat --- even the creepy bunny mask makes an appearance, but it just isn't the same. Daveigh Chase is rather good in the lead as she harbours such a solemn presence for her character Samantha. Someone longing to break away from the past, but she finds it catching up. However while she might be the main protagonist, be it sleepwalking while having trouble figuring out what's real and what's not, she remains clueless ("wake up") to the disruptive flow affecting the universe, as for other characters (like her friend Corey, town lad Randy and especially Iraq Jack) paths are chosen. These people seem to control their own destiny with their choices of making things right (mainly sacrifice) going on to affect Sam, as they see hope in her. Everything must happen for a reason, in what seems like larger forces at work.This all might read interesting on paper, but the execution isn't that compelling as it could have been. Some instances are simply rehashed (repetitive dialogues and actions) and the small town dramatics caught under a magnifying glass never truly engages in its crazy, unusual situation. You seem to be waiting for things to happen, then in natural progression. The lesser characters feel quite hollow and trivial to the actual scheme of things. The neurotic special effects are clunky, but still have that novel touch about them towards their use in the surreal story-telling. The young cast feature the likes of Ed Westwick, James Lafferty, Jackson Rathbone and also appearing is Elizabeth Berkley, Mathew Davis and an enjoyable John Hawkes.Tries hard, but I guess like someone stated "Death comes to us all".