Donnie Darko Reviews
Top Critic
Kelly is a supple and courageous storyteller, boldly free-associating as he mixes parody and satire with earnest psychodrama and coming up with plot points no one could anticipate.
Donnie Darko has plenty of problems. But most stem from a young filmmaker overswinging on his first time up to the plate and hitting a deep fly out rather than a home run.
Shows plenty of promise, but it's somewhat self-involved and won't appeal to audiences who like a straightforward -- even if fantastical -- narrative.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3.5/4
A stunning technical accomplishment that virtually bursts with noise, ideas and references.
First-time director-writer Richard Kelly draws on a number of intriguing elements ... without including a single, crucial gem that pulls everything together.
If this movie ever figured out what it wanted to be when it grows up, it would be a terrific one.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/4
An engaging, time-tripping Holden Caulfield.
| Original Score: 3/4
This set-up and development is fascinating, the payoff less so.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.5/4
It flutters, like a mischievous butterfly, above the despairing hands of easy description.
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/5
Kelly is unable to give the movie the kind of pacing that would make us laugh and shock us simultaneously, because he's too infatuated with an aura of hand-me-down gloom.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/5
Donnie Darko may be too ambitious for a debut feature, but ambition and imagination still trump mediocrity any day of the week.
Full Review
| Original Score: B+
Just another self-absorbed teen chronicle, with the added twist of a little time travel and a surprise ending.
Full Review
| Original Score: 1.5/4
A wondrous, moodily self-involved piece of work that employs X-Files magic realism to galvanize what might have been a routine tale of suburban teen angst.
Despite its flaws, this is a compelling motion picture, and offers the kind of 'fresh' experience extended by the likes of Pi and The Sticky Fingers of Time.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/4
