Day 41 -- S. Darko

Released: August 9th, 2009

Starring: Daveigh Chase, Briana Evigan, Ed Westwick, James Lafferty, Matthew Davis

Writer/Director: Nathan Atkins/Chris Fisher

Description: The story picks up seven years after the first film when little sister Samantha Darko and her best friend Corey are now 18 and on a roadtrip to Los Angeles when they are plagued by bizarre visions.

[Review may contain spoilers. Please watch movie before reading, unless you don't care. Most of these films have already been released for a while, so they should be readily available.]

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Some movies should never be made. They are usually sequels to movies that really didn't require a sequel, such as "Speed 2", "American Pyscho 2", and "Caddyshack 2", to name a few. At least with the movies I named, there was most likely a mainstream audience out there that would pay money to see it. But others are made for reasons that I haven't quite figured out yet, maybe the producers like to lose money?

"S. Darko" makes "Southland Tales" look like an actual movie. From what I can tell there no semblance of a plot, and every consequence is immediately erased by time travel or alternate realities. At least "Tales" had some sort of a structure, despite how messed up it was. Even "Donnie Darko" was a presentable movie, and that film enjoys a love-hate relationship from me.

What I can gather from the story is that Samantha Darko (Chase), who's apparently is in "Donnie Darko", is traveling to LA with her friend, Corey (Evigan), to get away from her life in Virginia. Along the way they break down, and are rescued by Chuck Bass...err, I mean Randy (Westwick) who offers to fix their car. Once they settle into the middle of nowhere town, crazy stuff starts happening.

First, a meteor hits a windmill, and crazy local, Iraq Jack (Lafferty), escapes with his life, but this moment sparks the twist and turns of a time travel movie. For the next half hour, the plot moves along smoothly as the girl assimilate themselves to the town, and eventually come to odds when Sam wants to leave, but Corey does not. After an argument, Sam is killed in a two car accident. This is when things go off the wagon in terms of plot, and I got completely lost.

It's okay to have some twist, and alternate realities are alright, but they are a writing crutch because there are no real consequences to any decisions you make with the characters. One minute they could be dead, next their alive, and then someone else died, but then they're not dead either, like I said it protects you from making a tough choice in writing. The biggest screw you from the writers is that the movie reverts to the meteor attack, and we find out that Iraq Jack died. I assume they tried to go for the "Donnie Darko" ending where he was dead the whole time, but it fell incredibly short.

The strangest thing about this film is that the supporting cast is a who's who of teen girl entertainment. Beside Gossip Girls' Westwick, the roles are filled by One Tree Hill's James Lafferty, Vampire Diaries' Matthew Davis, and Twilight's Jackson Rathborne. None of them seem to be giving a lot of effort, except maybe Rathborne, who turns in an okay performance as geeky Jeremy. 

But the award for worst acting, and probably deserving of a Razzie (on second thought, this film is too bad for the Razzies), goes to Briana Evigan. The "star" of Step Up 2: The Streets" is trying entirely too hard to sound like a bad-ass bitch, and part of the blame goes to the writer as well. She stresses the curse words too much, and make them sound more unnatural than a girl with her personality should. 

The writer was attempting to be vulgar for vulgar's sake, especially the scene where Corey talks about sex with the Pastor (Davis). For some reason when I hear the term "blue balls" spoken on screen, I cringe, not because of what it means, but that I think if your going to write about that, there are much more cleaver was than using that term.

"S. Darko" holds the distinction of being the messiest movie that I've watched so far. The writer and director tried so hard to emulate the previous film that they forgot to create a compelling story. There is nothing remotely redeemable about this film, the two female leads don't provide enough eye candy to make it watchable for the most immature reason. I should know, I've watched plenty of films for that exact reason.

Rating: 1.5/10 -- Made me long for "Gamer", and I hate that movie with a passion. I've already wasted enough words on the piece of crap disguised as a film.