Average Rating: 
Rating:  - To sum it up. Don't read if you haven't seen the movie yet.
Ok the director made a flaw when he mentioned cellardoor. I loved his mentioning it but his mistake came when he went on to assume that it was edgar allen poe that made the comment, in all actuality it was JRR Tolkien who made this comment. Tolkien was the great linguist who actually created his own languages. Poe was a poet. So if you read this then now you know. So the movie is great. It made me think. I generally like doing such activities. You got this kid who sees the future with his powers and "unconsciously knows" he's going to die. He wants to change the way things will be and uses his powers to do so by keeping himself from dying the fateful nite. He does this by creating an alternate course of time where he is not in his bed when a jet engine crashes on top of it. So he's always sneaking out of his room at nite on the off beat chance that nite is the fateful nite. Then you have this old lady who also has these powers and writes a book on it and she wants things set right and put back in order, and she does this unconsciously as well by causing Frank to accidently kill Gretchen by unconsciously always being in the middle of the road. I guess Lady Death "unconsciously knows" this will help Donnie make everything right. The kid sees that he has to change things back to how everything was supposed to be (where he dies)and makes the jet engine of his mom's airplane fall into a portal which he creates for the engine to go back in time and fall on himself 28 days from the 30th. How the jet engine ever initially falls is beyond me but according to time theory if you have an 8 ball go through a portal to the past then that 8 ball will always have gone into the portal and always come out at the other end of the portal. The thing is when it comes out in the past what changes will it make? Even if say the 8 ball runs into itself somewhere down the line that in itself may have caused the 8 ball to have gone through the time portal initially, but there is no disputing the fact that the 8 ball will have to go into the time portal and come out no matter what you try to do to stop it. The 8 ball initially always came out before the possibility of it going in is conceived. Therefore predestination exist if time travel exist. It's a law of time. If time travel itself is possible. And seeing that he actually does force the jet engine to fall on his previous self in the alternate future then this would bring an end to his alternate universe/the world. So the bunny was right all along, the world did end. The touching ending is what made it all the worthwhile. The end has the director saying that Donnie is smiling because Donnie thinks it was all just a dream. But to me Donnie was smiling because he was no longer afraid to die alone. Which if the director didn't think about seeing it that way then his ...missed a good ending call. Also from a deleted scene you have Donnie and Gretchen playing some 80s racecar game and he describes the visions he has and says they are like dreams but they are crystal clear and right when they are over just like when you wake up from a dream it all slips away little by little really quick. Well at the end you see everyone and they are all waking up from the "dream" that Donnie made, his alternate universe. And eventually they all start to forget about it. And that's why Gretchen hesitates at the end but still says that she never knew Donnie. Because to her it was all just a dream that's slipping out of hers and everyone else's memory. If you didn't know, the deleted scenes have a lot of Donnie and Gretchen together as bf/gf. And another scene that was deleted that was not even in the deleted scenes section show him and Gretchen dropping off the roberta sparrow letter. And I feel that the love story here is awesome even though they downplayed it with editing. But yeah there you go. Great ending. Loved it. All time classic movie. If i'm wrong about certain things then I don't care.
Rating: - Dark, Chilling, Reavealing, and EXCEPTIONAL!
I originally wanted to see this movie because of it's stellar cast. Drew Barrymore, Jake Gyllenhaal, Noah Wylie, and Mary Mcdonnell are all exceptionally cast. Gyllenhaal plays Donnie Darko, a tainted young man who hears voices and sleepwalks. One night he is drawn from his bed onto a golf course. While there he meets Frank, a 6 foot tall rabbit who tells him that the end of the world is coming. Donnie narrowly escapes death as an airplane engine falls into his bedroom and lands on his bed where he should have been sleeping. Upon finding out this information, Donnie begins to notice things that normal people don't see. He starts to question life, and the theory of time travel. It eventually becomes obvious to Donnie that he was not suppose to survive the night of the engine crash. Now he must put all the pieces of the puzzle and figure out how to undo the damage before he loses all those closest to him. Anyone with an interest in time travel or a love for dark films should see this. A++ film.
Rating: - I...er...uh...I'm speechless.
I cannot even begin to explain how much I loved Donnie Darko, but I'm gonna try. Lately, I've become so incredibly annoyed and tired with run-of-the-mill, cookie-cutter, "normal" movies. I'm gonna puke if I see one more Meg Ryan romantic comedy. I want something different, something original, something artistic...something great. Donnie Darko is all of these things...This movie is unlike anything I've ever seen. There is nothing to compare it to. I've never seen a film that is at once hilarious, suspenseful, scary, beautiful, sad, moving, deep, confusing and disorienting. It's about so many things: troubled youth, love, destiny, family, mental illness, loneliness, time travel, fate, death, God...and a demonic bunny. This film's greatest strength is its amazing characters. I can relate to several of them, especially Donnie and his "Caulfield-esque" way of thinking. I can also relate to Jena Malone's character, Gretchen, who is drawn to the mysterious "bad boy." And I think we can all relate to Cherita, the lonely outcast with the unrequited crush. This is the first time I've seen Jake Gyllenhaal in a film (other than City Slickers, which doesn't really count). I gotta say...he knocked me on my [rear]. From the scenes with Donnie's family, to his hypno-therapy sessions, to his rant about the Smurfs, he is absolutely perfect. I hope to see a lot more of him in the future. Watch this movie. And when it's over, watch it again. And then...watch it again. It will blow your mind and leave you dumb-founded.
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