Now, answer honestly, when you saw the image for this did you really notice that it wasn’t Keanu? … Really?

I had a few problems with this movie.

I think including such a stellar cast in a film that’s essentially a tale of everymen; of nobodies is a mistake. Plain and simple.

I also think that the rotorscoping techniques are used here (much as in Linklater’s Waking Life) just for the sake of using it. Its removal from reality simply serves to detract from the point of the story; which is a gradual move away from sanity. When the central characters hallucinations begin to wind their way across the screen, they fail to contrast significantly with animation that preceded them.

Rotorscoping (as Linklater uses it) also fails to focus the eye. In a camera there is a depth of field which carries the audience about the screen and tells the story. This is also true of computer animation and its virtual array of cameras and lenses and of classic animation where different painterly techniques are used for the background and the characters. Here with every part in sharp focus; they eye wanders about and the audience, ultimately, grows bored.

I had an inkling halfway through the film that there was some profundity to be found there; that, if I concentrated hard enough and scraped away the layers of mediocrity I might find something of worth. But, after a while I concluded that I’d probably be better off reading the book.