Rating: 
Summary: donnie doze-o
Review: I have to agree with the Donnie Sucko reviewer. I had high expectations for this film, as it came highly recommended by friends of mine who ordinarily have good taste! I thought it was slow, cliched, with underdeveloped, smarmy characters. I thought the acting was poor to boot. The special effects were sort of cool, but not cool enough to maintain interest. I've never hit the time remaining button on the DVD remote as often as I have while watching this drek.
Rating: 
Summary: Greatly flawed
Review: I believe the directors and writers of this movie intended for it to be complex, but rather than this, they made it an unorganized collection of clips and dialog just to fit into a two hour time limit. Nothing was portrayed the way it was intended to be portrayed. Many characters including Drew Barrymore's were underdeveloped, and when events took place in their lives, there was no impact to the viewer because of this. The impactfulness of every event in this movie is dwindled down to a bead because of the lack of development. It seems the producers wanted to impress completely different groups of audiences, one teenagers, the other, the oddballs of the world. Due to the lack of structure to the movie, all of us oddballs were disappointed, especially with certain mediocre scenes of some characters using out of place profanity and subject content, when this time could have been targeted to character development and relationships. Far from complex and brilliant scenes. The teenage crowd was unimpressed by this sloppy attempt at teenage relation. Many of the deleted scenes were vital, and needed to be included in the movie in order for the viewer to feel and understand the whole concept of it. But the movie was inventive, and had some note worthy parts to it. Sadly, this was just the stories topics, original they were, but not done justice. The only thing that gave it's mystical complex beauty was the music, which sets the viewer off into a journey into the stars. To anyone, I would suggest buying just the album, which is excellent, the score is the only thing that saved this movie from being lousy, and providing it with a certain brilliance I was expecting. The movie was certainly short of being brilliant.
Rating: 
Summary: An original, intriguing, mind-bending movie!
Review: I had never heard of this movie 'til I noticed it on the IMDB list of 200 Best Movies. I figured it had to be worth a try ... and it certainly was! I'm not sure it's quite as great as some of its biggest boosters claim it is, but it's definitely in the top 5% of the approximately 1,000 movies I've watched in my lifetime. In an era of endless sequels and "copycat" movies, "Donnie Darko" is a true original: clever, thought-provoking, filled with surprises and delights and wry humor. And while it is aimed primarily at younger viewers -- i.e. those under 25 or so -- it should be seen by anyone, of any age, who appreciates creative film-making. Worth watching more than once -- and, as others have already said, you should definitely check out the website to get the most out of the movie.
Rating:
Summary: I had no idea..
Review: .. that anything could be this bizarre and disconnected with reality, and still be funny an entertaining. I went into this movie without any expectations. I was told "It's weird" and even "It's stupid" but such 2 word reviews don't really tell me anything. Anyway, here goes: We start out with our anti-Hero, Donnie Darko, who is leading a bizarre night life. Every morning, he wakes up far away from his bed in his pajamas. He also sees things. Things like giant rabbits. Oh, and air planes fall on his house. Also, time travel. Yes. Weird. Many little things set this apart from other movies. From it's wonderful characterization (Jake Gyllenhaal gives an amazing performance), to it's slow yet not-boring pace. I left the theatre wondering what I just experienced. My mind attempted to make sense of everything, and I realized that is exactly the intention. This movie wasn't pretentiously cerebral, dealing with esoteric concepts. This movie was about the struggle of an immensely intelligent kid who is more than a little crazy. The philosophy comes in the form of his explorations and thought processes. He sees the world so clearly, yet nobody else does. A fascinating look at the mind of a dark young man.
Rating: 
Summary: Almost Works...Almost...
Review: Donnie Darko is a troubled teenager living in 1988 suburbia. Sure, there's lots of troubled teenagers in suburbia, so what's new? Well, for one thing, Donnie keeps seeing manifestations of a guy named Frank dressed in a bunny suit telling him that the end is approaching. No one really understands Donnie, so he rebels against just about everyone and everything except his therapist (Katherine Ross). Extremely strange things begin to happen as Frank predicts Donnie's approaching rendezvous with destiny. The film is unfortunately loaded with clichés: the troubled teen, the idiot parents, the sympathetic science teacher, the class bullies, the new girl in town...it's everything we've seen before in dozens of other movies. But 'Donnie Darko' does have one thing going for it: it's as strange as a flock of flying pigs. That weirdness almost makes the movie work, but the film ends leaving so many loose ends that are never tied up. The extra features should have been a warning sign: when you've got 20 deleted and extended scenes, you've probably got a chopped up story. Maybe the movie makes more sense with those scenes included, but after two hours, I didn't really want to spend any more time with Donnie Darko.
Rating:
Summary: Confusing? Maybe, but that's a good thing.
Review: I really liked this movie. It is a testament to good movies. I have friends tell me, "Hey, this movie is confusing, therefore, I don't like it." Confusing is good, it leaves you still thinking of the film even after it's been turned off for a couple of days, which is what I think the director intended. If you really look at it, the film is not that confusing in and of itself. Yes, it deals with intelligent subject matter (wormholes and time travel). Yes, the movie throws you for a loop, creating the sense of confusion. The thing is, there are tons of movies that don't make a lick of sense (Lost Highway, or pretty much any David Lynch movie, which I think are all steaming piles of excrement), but people still like them. Give it a chance, and you will love it or hate it. Me, I loved it.
Rating:
Summary: IT WILL Seriously Knock You FLAT!
Review: THIS IS ONE OF THE BEST FILMS I HAVE EVER SEEN AND I AM KEEPING A COPY OF THIS DVD TO SPREAD THE WORD AND SHOW THIS MOVIE AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE!!!!!!! That is the feeling you are gonna get when you are done watching this terribly underrated movie. I am not someone who takes critics in total consideration but on the cover of the film one critic states "IT'LL KNOCK YOU FLAT" and that is exactly what happened to me and some of the people I have lent this film to. Now you are probably waiting for me to explain to you the story or anything else but it is too good. IT's a movie that is so weird but so captivating that it grabs you and shuts you up. You get lost and you just wonder what in God's name is goin on with Donnie and why are all these things happening to him. I have watched the film over 15 times now and I can honestly tell you I still do not have a definite answer for the reasons of Donnie's misfortunes. This movie also contains an all star cast but I don't think that will matter at all in the end because the story itself is one that you will have disect and look through backwards, upside down, and through many different opinions as possible. I will not be surprised if future film directors state that Donnie Darko was one of the reasons why they got into the film industry because movies that contains stories like these are only called one thing...ART!
Rating:
Summary: A Beautiful, Brilliant Experience
Review: It's stunning to me sometimes how some films don't achieve more mainstream success than they do, but this is a beautiful film regardless. It may be the shangri-la of independent film: a treasure known to, and appreciated by, only those who not only stumble upon, but choose to explore it. For myself and my fellow children of the '80s, it's enough to be nostalgic about the era in which it's set, but in addition, this film has all the ingredients of an astonishing film: a superb cast the gels in an unnaturally perfect fashion (including Drew Barrymore in a role that should be a breath of fresh air to those of us who loathed never been kissed), beautiful philisophical implications, and a story that never fails to take you in directions you never dreamed. Also, Jake Gyllenhal in a brilliant performance before teenie-boppers discovered him this year in "The Good Girl".
Rating: 
Summary: Does not fit into the mold
Review: This movie is a load of crap, but it's an entertaining and endearing load of crap - until the directors veer into the real story, of which we care not one whit about. The more I watch movies, the more I find that directors thinking that the story should lead when it shouldn't (and vice-versa), is a common fundamental fault. It stars, obviously, Donnie Darko, a strange and smart disturbed young man who forgets to take his medication, with alarming results - an apparition makes him sleepwalk out of the house. That is fortunate, because an unexplained plane jet falls on the house, but being outside he is undamaged. Oh yeah, and the end of the world is near. Donnie Darko is an interesting movie, in that it refuses obstinately to fit into the mold of "disturbed teenager" movies - it is almost cheerful and enthusiastic about finding comedy in the unlikeliest of places. Unfortunately, this energy is eventually set aside for plot and symbolism, which in the context does not make much sense, and we don't care. At the end of his review, Roger Ebert comments : "(...) somehow the control fades in the closing scenes, and our hands, which have been so full, close on emptiness. ''Donnie Darko'' is the one that got away. But it was fun trying to land it."
Rating:
Summary: Different, original mix that works
Review: Donnie Darko is a rare mixture of suspense, comedy, horror, European cinema with a twist, and then some. Donnie (played by Jake Gyllenhaal from Bubble Boy) is a bright student who's on therapy and visits his doctor who discovers Doonie's sleepwalking activities during a hypnosis session. He has a happy life and is not bitter about anything. One night hears the call of a 6-foot rabbit and goes on a sleepwalking stroll, while a jet engine falls through his room. The event changes his life, as the encounters with the strange rabbit are more frequent. The FAA doesn't know where the engine came from as no airline has reported one missing from their planes, and everything is a bit confusing for everyone. The movie has some interesting scenes like one where Patrick Swayze plays a local author and inspirational speaker who goes to Donnie's school to speak to the students, and Donnie asks him "how much did they pay you to be here?" followed by an awkward silence. There are a few scenes where style takes over substance, one with what looks like a slow-mo steadycam continuous shot through halls and then out to the yard of the school to sound of Tears for Fears. Some say that mentally ill people tell it like it is because of their condition, but here we have a bright student-Donnie- who is a little, or a lot-depends how you see it- Schizophrenic and takes every chance to just blurt out his personal opinion-and one with which many of us agree- about the system. Like the scene where his gym teacher asks him to read from a card with some sample life experience and draw an x between "fear" and "love" on the board to illustrate where his life's experiences fall with in the two. He tells the teacher "it's not that simple...life's more complicated than that...one can't just categorize everything into two extremes..." I won't tell you what Donnie told the teacher to do with her little cards but he ends up in the principal's office. Donnie sees some gel like extensions coming from their families bodies as if arrows that point towards the future, so he starts discussing time travel and wormholes with his science teacher, who stops taking about it when the "G" word enters their discussion: God. The teacher replies "I can lose my job". The movie is filled with these social observations. In school you can talk about the universe at length, but not about religion. The local celebrity (Sawyze), whom the gym teacher respects, is caught running a pornography ring from his basement. Drew Barry, the English teacher is let go because she doesn't fit in with the school's conservative values. The movie keeps us interested, because there's a smooth flow of scenes, and it has scary moments, not based on violence and blood, but on suspense, mood, and wonder. Where did the rabbit come from, what's the meaning of the strange messages it tells Donnie?
Is it just an illusion? Then why did it save his life? Is Donnie a psychic? All these questions are answered but not like you'd expect. There are twists and turns like in any drunken pretzel. This is not your typical formula, and at the end we feel the movie works not because of it's ending, but because of the trip there.
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