A strikingly different film from the original: with a slower pace and a much less enigmatic tone.
Donnie Darko: The Director's Cut (2004)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:43
Fresh:39
Rotten:4
Average Rating:8.1/10
Theatrical Release:27-08-2004
Synopsis: In a funny, moving and distinctly mind-bending journey through suburban America, one extraordinary but disenchanted teenage is about to take Time’s Arrow for a ride. October 2nd, 1988: just... In a funny, moving and distinctly mind-bending journey through suburban America, one extraordinary but disenchanted teenage is about to take Time’s Arrow for a ride. October 2nd, 1988: just another ordinary day in Donnie Darko’s teen-aged existence. He’s taken his medication, watched Dukakis & Bush debate, and had dinner with the family. Then an outrageous accident occurs, which just misses claiming Donnie’s life. As Donnie begins to explore what it means to still be alive, and in short order to be in love, he uncovers secrets of the universe that five him a tempting power to alter time and destiny. From 26 year-old first time writer-director Richard Kelly comes the provocative DONNIE DARKO, a genre busting fable that blasts the American suburban drama into a wildly imaginative realm of time travel, alternative universes and the manipulation of one’s fate. But at the core of DONNIE DARKO is the simple story of a boy trying to make a stand in a lonely, chaotic world – and discovering that every little thing he does counts on a cosmic scale. Originally screened at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival, DONNIE DARKO became one of the festival’s most talked-about and debated films, praised for blending sci-fi fantasy with an original vision of a modern suburbia teetering on the edge of dread and disaster. The question became: what is DONNIE DARKO? Is it a look back at the underbelly of the Ferris Bueller and Back to the Future era? Or is it a wild journey into multiple realities and multiple outcomes? Is it the story of an increasingly cynical, hypocritical society on a crash-course with apocalypse? Or is it a fairy-tale about a teen hero who changes the world around him? Is this the cosmic death knell of the Regan Era, or a portrait of a troubled community redeemed by the hand of God? The surprising answer is that DONNIE DARKO is all of these – a deep inquiry into the recent past and the possibilities for the future all wrapped up in the story of a teenager unlike any you’ve met before. Writer/director Richard Kelly purposefully wanted DONNIE DARKO to be vast enough to mean different things to different people. But he offers this guidance for the mind-blowing ride ahead: “Maybe it’s the story of Holden Caulfield, resurrected in 1988 by the spirit of Philip K. Dick, who was always spinning yarns about schizophrenia and drug abuse breaking the barriers of space and time. Or it’s a black comedy foreshadowing the impact of the 1988 presidential election, which is really the best way to explain it. But first and foremost, I wanted the film to be a piece of social satire that needs to be experienced and digested several times.” DONNIE DARKO – THE DIRECTOR’S CUT features 20 minutes of never-before-seen footage; new & enhanced visual effects and new music. -- © Newmarket Films [More]
Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Jena Malone, Drew Barrymore
Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Jena Malone, Drew Barrymore, Mary McDonnell, Holmes Osborne, Katharine Ross, Patrick Swayze, Noah Wyle, James Duval
Director: Richard Kelly
Director: Richard Kelly
Screenwriter: Richard Kelly
Producer: Nancy Juvonen, Adam Fields, Sean McKittrick
Composer: Michael Andrews
Studio: Newmarket Films
Reviews for Donnie Darko: The Director's Cut
The resulting film reveals an artist who has seriously reflected on his work and carefully considered what to add, what to alter and sometimes what to remove.
The film feels like a collision between a John Hughes teen comedy and a David Lynch freakfest.
...other additions -- most egregiously at the climax -- are just intrusive and reduce our interpretive choices by replacing them with one choice, purely science-fictional in a George Lucas 'midichlorians' sense, that's a diminishment, not an illumination.
it cannot be discounted that the substantial supplementary features went a long way towards backing up the film's legitimacy to its ever-increasing population of followers.
Like Being John Malkovich and 2001: A Space Odyssey and too few others, this is one of those mind-melting cinematic achievements.
...in the years since the film was made, the country and the world have become even more divided.... Maybe the movie is more meaningful today than ever.
The longer version ... packs more of a kick and has a grander, gloomier vision: It represents four weeks in the mind of a smart, anguished, lonely guy who doesn't think he's fit to live.
This is the kind of movie that creates friendships among its aficionados.
Richard Kelly's revamped version of his creepy, cool debut is neither a bold revelation nor a bland over-elaboration.
The die-hards will dig it, and those who skipped its initial run should greater enjoy their first trip through the cellar door of Donnie's universe.
Even with additional footage of questionable value, Donnie Darko remains a fantastic midnight at the movies.
A masterpiece of mood...Donnie Darko is made less obscure—for better or worse—in Kelly's expanded director's cut.
Still an exceptionally challenging film...but it's not quite the equal of the one some of us found so extraordinary in 2001.
What remains unchanged is the realization of just what a superb actor Jake Gyllenhaal is.
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