As rabid a Darko fan as I am, I'm just not digging this new cut. It's still an awesome flick, don't get me wrong, but I find it interesting that even the greatest, most brilliant, and most adored flicks all lose something special when they're tinkered with.
There really hasn't been a decent director's cut in a good 15 or 20 years now, since the days of Blade Runner and Aliens. Even though directors are getting closer to their original vision via their tampering, at the same time they're distancing themselves from the film people loved in the first place. Leave it alone man, forget what you wanted it to be and let it live on as it is, I say.
If you've yet to experience the tale of time travelling mentalist Donnie Darko and his sidekick Frank the psycho bunny rabbit, then close this browser right now and treat yourself to the (original) DVD before reading on. Not only will I be ruining the flick for you otherwise, but you owe it to yourself to experience this cinematic orgasm first hand.
Love
 | | Aaaarrrrggghhhh! |
|
I knew little about the first film before I discovered it by accident. On one of my late night online drunken DVD ordering sessions I saw it going cheap on region 1, and ultimately chose it just 'cos it had a cool name (plus Patrick Swayze was in it, of course).
After I watched it for the first time, I just kinda sat back in a state of shock asking myself, "What the fuck was that?". But ya know, in a good way.
Leaving aside the gorgeous photography and funny as fuck dialogue, I think the brilliance of Donnie Darko is that everyone who watches it sees a different film; one that reflects their own personality as much as the film itself. On the one hand it's a tale of a disturbed young teenager battling mental illness and loneliness, yet on the other hand it's a superhero story about saving the universe. And it can just as easily be anything in between. Many even say the whole flick is nothing more than one guy's fantasy the moment before he dies.
 | | Imperial walkers have been digitally reinserted into this scene |
|
My take is on it is somewhere down the middle. I love the whole mental illness angle, and the idea of voices in Donnie's troubled mind forcing him to do evil things. In fact I remember the first time I saw it, when Donnie sees those bizarre hallucinogenic shapes leading him to a gun in his parents closet, I thought I finally had a grasp on where this flick was going; this guy has schizophrenia and he's gonna shoot up his school. How wrong I was.
From here I think the film slowly mutates into more of a surreal science fiction film though, but more akin to David Lynch than George Lucas. In Donnie's final moments he has to make a choice whether to save the girl he loves (not to mention everyone else) in exchange for his own life, and in the end makes the ultimate sacrifice. It's a very powerful moment, and goes down as one of the better endings to a film in recent years.
Fear
 | | Donnie and his dad share a cute moment in one of the better new scenes |
|
As for this new cut, for starters it's a fair bit longer, clocking in at two hours and fifteen minutes now. Many of the deleted scenes from the first DVD have been reinserted, along with some others that were held back. In addition, and perhaps in the biggest case of misjudgement of all time, there's also a completely new and remixed soundtrack, in terms of both music and sound effects. And that's really where most of my complaints stem from.
First of all there's a ton of little niggling changes. Take the opening shot of Donnie laying in the middle of the road for instance; instead of playing out in pure, eerie silence like before, with nothing but that ominous score keeping us company, there's now a huge dollop of ambient sound effects - crickets, birds, what have you. It doesn't sound like much here, but when you see it yourself you realise how much it undercuts the haunting intro of the original.
They Made Me Ruin it
On its own this isn't a big deal, but you get dozens of similar moments throughout the rest of the film too, and they really add up. Check out Frank's voice as another example...no longer made of pure sub bass as it was before, it's now been reverbed around all the speakers and gets lost in the mix somewhat. It just doesn't sucker punch you in the gut as it used to, and loses its power as a result.
Worst of all though, are the remixed music cues which I thoroughly detest. Much of the beautiful score of the original has been replaced, and in some extreme cases, even removed completely, leaving scenes playing over complete silence. Half the greatness of the original was how the music married with the visuals so unbelievably perfectly, and that's negated here.
The Tangent Film
 | | The abominable new time travel scene in all its crap-tastic glory |
|
Moving onto bigger problems, this version amplifies the sci-fi elements hugely over the original, so much so that any other interpretation is smothered and pretty much rendered impossible.
There's pages from Grandma Death's book popping up regularly between chapters, blatantly spelling out exactly what's going on, and the plot's lost a lot of its subtlety as a result. It's now more like someone's yelling out what's happening through a bullhorn.
But perhaps my biggest gripe of all is the horrendous butchering job of the final rewinding time travel sequence just before Donnie dies. If you remember originally it was a sublime montage of the entire film playing backwards, accompanied by that glorious piano melody. The only way to describe it now is as if The Architect from The Matrix was watching the film through his monitors and hitting the rewind button. And then inexplicably the screen fills with fireworks! Is this thing for real?
There's two aspects I do like somewhat. The added scene of Donnie bidding farewell to his mum and sister as they depart for the Sparkle Motion contest is kinda sweet, and gives their relationship a proper bookend baring in mind he'll never see them again. I also kinda dug the new close up iris shots following each of Donnie's encounters with Frank, embedding him with the elements. If you follow the superhero theory of the flick then these moments fit in nicely with Donnie receiving his new powers.
Darko Fucks America
This release is actually exclusive to region 2 at the time of writing. In fact it doesn't appear to be scheduled to appear State side any time soon, further referenced by the fact that most of the extra features on this set are very specific to an English audience. Apparently this is due to the flick being such an immense success over here, while it originally bombed in the states.
First off there's a montage from a London art exhibition where artists created work inspired by the film. Then there's a mini-featurette on the cult following of the flick and how it's affected fans' lives. These UK specific extras are a little boring though, and dare I say it, kind of irritating.
The only decent extra feature is the new audio commentary by director Richard Kelly. In a rather surprising, but incredibly pleasing move, he invites good buddy Kevin Smith in to join him, despite having fuck all to do with the film itself.
 | | Random trivia; this is the same house used in Mallrats |
|
Anyone who's a Kevin Smith fan and has his discs for Mallrats, Clerks, or Dogma knows how much of a riot his commentaries are, so this is a welcome addition and perhaps worth the price of the set alone. Somewhat wisely though, Kev doesn't hog the mic here - this is Kelly's universe and he respects that, merely playing the part of the bemused audience member asking what the fuck is going on throughout.
As far as commentaries go, this is a great one, but it becomes increasingly clear as the session progresses that the movie the director had in his head isn't quite the same one it turned out to be. I was actually quite disappointed to hear some of the explanations he delved into to be honest. Kev apparently seems to agree to a certain extent, half seriously berating Kelly to "keep that stuff to yourself - I hate that".
I think there's a magic to this film where it kinda took on a life of its own outside the writer/director's vision and went to a magical new place instead, and this cut certainly takes a step back from that. I'm kind of torn here, because as much as I love DVDs, cut scenes, commentaries, and all that jazz, perhaps this is one flick that would have greatly benefited from a simple bare bones release that leaved all the questions and theories up to the viewer.
Other extras include some brief cast interviews, a surprisingly dull production diary, and all the old extras from the original DVD set (minus the original commentaries).
All in all, even though it's nice to finally get a region 2 release of a Hollywood film that doesn't even exist in region 1, I wouldn't suggest our American cousins get too bent out of shape just yet. They really aren't missing out on a huge amount here, save the commentary.
Mad World
 | | Nice to see English weather up on the big screen for a change |
|
I know a director's free to do what they want with their own film and all, but a recent UK film magazine put it best when they stated that with this new cut all Kelly's done is shave one star off a five star movie. I can't really put it more eloquently than that so I wont try.
At the end of the day, this project isn't a huge failure as Kelly himself is desperate to maintain that it isn't the definitive cut. He hasn't pulled a "Star Wars" and rid the world of the original version we all love. Both Darko's are still available, and always will be - this is just more of an extended remix, as he puts it.
It's an interesting watch for the average DD fan, sure, but when I chuck the flick on further down the line, the original is the one I'll be reaching for every time.
