I missed this film in its theatrical release (apparently it received limited distribution), but since it requires at least two viewings, it's well-suited for DVD. It's difficult to describe the story or even characterize it by genre, which shows how original the film is. Simply put, it's about time travel, but it's about a lot more than that, too.

The acting is consistently outstanding, with a list of well-known names in the cast, along with less familiar ones. Jake Gyllenhaal gives an amazing performance that is so convincing, you forget that he is acting; he IS Donnie Darko. While the story is mainly told through his eyes, the other characters are surprisingly sympathetic as well. This is not an easy feat for a script to accomplish, especially when the viewer must focus so much attention on every event. It would have been easy to create a one-dimensional hero and a bunch of villains, but writer/director Richard Kelly doesn't take the easy way out.

Instead, we get a highly intelligent and challenging film that engages us as much as it baffles us, that injects enough humor to keep us from stress-overload, and most importantly, makes us want to watch it again and again, even after we know what's going on. In this sense, "Donnie Darko" succeeds where other films have fallen short: for example, I enjoyed the complexities of "Memento", but I was not able to identify or even care very much about any of the characters. The same was true of "The Usual Suspects". Both are excellent films, but I viewed both from a distance, more analytically than emotionally.

I did not view "Donnie Darko" from a distance. I was drawn into the world that it creates, and enjoyed it enough to return more than once. A brilliant first film from Richard Kelly, who has set a very high standard for himself.

The DVD does full justice to this fine movie. The video and audio are excellent, and the extra features are quite thorough. I particularly enjoyed the commentary by Richard Kelly and Jake Gyllenhaal, which I listened to the second time I watched the film. They do a great job of helping the viewer to connect the dots. They also include just enough of the usual "behind the scenes" banter to keep the commentary from becoming too academic.

This DVD would definitely be included in any "desert island" list that I would ever compile. Strongly recommended!

First I would like to say that this review is more targeted at the Blu-Ray transfer of this movie. When I first found out this movie was available on Blu-Ray I had to have it since it's one of my favorite movies. I already owned the DVD, and was happy with the quality of the video on my up-converting DVD player. I figured the Blu-Ray would have to look better since it advertised as HD 1080p. Unfortunately that was not the case; in fact the DVD looks better up-converted than the Blu-Ray does. How does that happen? It appears the studio did very little to prepare this film for Blu-Ray. If anything they made it worse by trying to doctor it up rather than spend the money to re-master it properly. The movie has a lot of dark scenes which are almost all grainy and not very detailed. The light scenes are not as noticeable but you can still see it unless you're sitting a good distance from your TV. I guess the point I'm trying to make would be to hang on to your DVD until they fix the Blu-Ray transfer. At the new price it's worth buying if you don't already have the DVD, but don't "up grade" to this from your DVD.

My rating and the following refers specifically to the Director's Cut. I would rate the original theatrical release five stars.

This director's cut brought to mind William Faulkner's line about writers often having to "kill their darlings" in order to meet the demands of a work's wholeness and integrity. Evidently, Richard Kelly was forced to kill his darlings with the theatrical release, and the result was close to perfection, if not perfection itself. The film's emotional force was stunning; its mysteries challenging; its pace so good that hitting pause to get more popcorn was impossible to do; its soundtrack (to my mind) a tour de force. It worked terrifically as a film experience, being a beautiful "whole" work of art. Extras that included Roberta Sparrow's book were great ... who really wanted to read the book during the movie anyways? (Which we can now do in the DC.)

Which does not mean a director's cut had no hope of working. Or even, maybe, revisions to the soundtrack (although I really think that was touchy business better left untouched). There were some good scenes deleted from the original, mainly between family members, and they didn't seem major pace-cutters. Fortunately, we do get those scenes here, but we also get the overwhelming force of the director's enthusiasm ... and WAY too much embedded detail of his personal vision.

On the upside, there's a nifty freedom to that enthusiasm which translates well into the Darko world IF you are also enthusiastic and into "playing" with Darko. In other words, if you love Donnie Darko already, you may find this cut a lot of fun. The pacing's completely blown, and the ending comes across flat compared to the original. (Kelly gets too detailed and baroque at the end, thus the impact of the "Mad World" music montage--don't want to include spoilers--and last scene is severely undermined.) Yet it's great to have more Darko, however we have to get it. And I don't regret buying this.

But if you've never seen the original DVD release, I cannot recommend this DVD set to you over that one. You will probably wonder why a cult ever built up around this film ... what anyone saw in it. You'll be missing that visceral power and compelling wonder that makes movies great and leaves you wanting to see a movie again ... immediately, if possible.

Donnie Darko was a little miracle of a film that cast a huge shadow. The director's cut joins many other films that try for bigness and achieve little ... unless, of course, in Darko's case, you've already seen the light and are into shadow-play.