Luke Hicks (@lou_kicks), Film School Rejects/One Perfect Shot, Birth.Movies.Death.

Not that any of us are actually sick of hearing the sweet sound of his name, but Keanu Reeves reigns supreme once again, this time as a rotoscoped undercover cop with an autonomously splitting brain in Linklater’s Philip K. Dick near-future adaptation, “A Scanner Darkly.” Bob Arctor might be Reeves’ most brooding, peculiar, esoteric, and introspective performance to date, as well as the most impressive performance in a Linklater film. Drug-addled and ontologically lost, Arctor drifts through a digitized world in his identity-shifting uniform, nearly every moment an ominous requiem for an exponentially vanishing civilization. And it didn’t hurt that he had a phenomenal supporting cast in Winona Ryder, Woody Harrelson, and a witty, paranoid Robert Downey Jr. who preceded–but smoothly transitioned into–“Iron Man.” Arctor’s titular voiceover captures the essence of Reeves’ performance perfectly: “What does a scanner see? Into the head? Down into the heart? Does it see into me? Into us? Clearly or darkly? I hope it sees clearly because I can’t any longer see into myself. I see only murk. I hope for everyone’s sake the scanners do better, because if the scanner sees only darkly the way I do, then I’m cursed and cursed again.”

Mike McGranaghan (@AisleSeat), The Aisle Seat, Screen Rant

The thing about Linklater’s films is that the performances are always good. It’s part of what makes his body of work so special. In the interest of calling attention to a performance that deserves more praise, I’ll pick Keanu Reeves as Bob Arctor in “A Scanner Darkly.” The character is a cop on the trail of dealers making and peddling a drug that causes severe hallucinations and split personalities. He’s hooked on the stuff himself, which just adds a layer of complexity to everything. Reeves has always excelled at playing individuals who are spacey or introspective. Those qualities serve him well as Arctor. The character occasionally forgets who he is and Reeves makes that loss of identity disturbing for the audience.