Maybe you should see it less as a time travel movie (an aspect that I still find exceptional) and more as a very well-crafted teenage drama/family drama.

BJs Grade:

A+

pure genius, pure greatness, pure total awesomeness.

That's not good. I'm seeing it the third time today.

Fantastic Film, Interesting and Weird.

i had to make some research on this movie because i was totally lost, but i got it now . its really great

A-

I love this movie so much. I remember it had a bit of a cult status among many people at my school.

Easily in my top ten movies of all time

A++

Great performances, a solid debut effort, but overall a hugely overrated movie that doesn't really have much compel for me to rewatch it. B+

Just saw this movie for the first time today, and what can ya say, but -- W O W ! ! !

It didn't even get a theatrical release in my town, but being a huge fan of Bubble Boy released earlier that same summer, I was looking forward to it, only to have my hopes dashed. So, I put my frustration in a time capsule and opened it this afternoon to a DVD of the Donnie Darko Director's Cut.

It was worth the wait.

Simply fantabulous story, great acting, and above all a deliciously skewed sense of direction!

? out of 5.



(...I'd put my real rating, but I know I already scare a lot of you with my non-linear representations of reality...)

Well, let's see.... There are so many things I can say about this movie.

What I noticed almost immediately is that Donnie is a character whose creative impulses are being suppressed. He's always being checked, especially by his overbearing mother, that he is taking his pills and "being normal". Notice how Donnie feels like a zombie throughout the movie. Gyllenhaal plays this out excellently. There's a lot of a sexual stuff in the film too, from the near-masturbating incident during the psychotherapy or whatever, to the relationship with Gretchen.

One of the theories I've heard, and that I somewhat subscribe to, is the time travel aspect (which I'll explain in basic terms). The plane falling through Donnie's roof is a symbolic way of saying the world is about to end because the Universe has become unstable. In the film, it's the 28 days that Donnie lives through. Donnie was chosen to be "the one". He's the person who is to restore the world back to stability. Frank the bunny is the manipulated dead who contacts Donnie to help him and guide him through what he is to do. There are a bunch of symbolic things Donnie does as the receiver, including burning down the school (fire), and flooding the school (water). By the end of the film, he turns back time and ends up back in his room before the jet has fallen. This time, he doesn't see things and is relieved of his "supernatural" powers he had as the receiver. This time the jet falls, he's still in the room, and he's killed, like a sacrifice to restore the world.

I know for sure a lot of you might disagree with this, and that's fine. I believe it isn't this cut and dry, and it's only one thing amidst everything in the film. It certainly isn't the POINT of the film. There's a lot more to it, and there is a lot of ambiguity regarding the film, which is the reason why I love it and it is so discussion-able. There's still the schizophrenia and the depression and etc etc.... too much to talk about!

The movie has a lot of humour in it, and I think it all just adds to how Donnie is not taken seriously at all. The health teacher or whoever she was again who believed in the "there are only two emotions: fear and happiness" (or whatever it was again) still cracks me up. The video is entirely satyrical. And Patrick Swayze's extended cameo as the self-help guru is borderline hilarious.

I quite simply enjoyed the film, always enjoy talking about it, and I find it highly rewatchable. It's very complex, and I find myself still wondering about certain ideas in the film even after thinking and thinking about it.

A

PEACE, Mike.

something happens and i'm head over heals...

<3 Donnie Darko.

Pure Genius.When I first finished the confusion, literally the first words that came out of my mouth were....what the fuck. I thought about and researched a little, and will have to watch again. But pure brilliance. Amazing. Jake is such a brilliant actor in the film. A+

Watched it again, and still amazing, it has climbed up all the way to number 4 all time for me.

Two things I do not understand is how Donnie gets the engine back to the orginal universe and why did the whole jet engine anamoly start in the first place.

Nonetheless the film visually is very well done and the music is haunting.

Great characters and a great story.

The only problem with the film is if you think about the film has no real point (well to me)


A-

Possibly the only film where the directors cut makes it worse. Stick to the theatrical cut and its still a cracking film.

I watched the Directors cut and sometimes it felt like watching a movie and then sometimes like those Discovery Channel 2012 Nostradamus Armageddon show lol...

I'd argue the director's cut/redux version of Apocalypse Now is worse as well.

Honestly been ages since I watched it, remind me why its worse? Yes do my bidding and explain!

That whole long and boring French plantation sequence, with lots of political talk, grinds the redux version to a halt.

yeah the problem with super long director cuts is that for people who have time, they will enjoy the film as its a much deeper story.

General audiences would get bored by them.