I'm in agreement with virtually all of the negative reviews so far. This film is completely derivative and almost completely unoriginal. In fairness, though, there may be some things that make S Darko a little less incoherent. The basic universe of S Darko could be the tangent universe of Donnie Darko. The universe problem in the first film is not that the tangent universe cannot and must not exist, but that any universe cannot be contaminated by a tangent universe. My interpretation may be completely wrong, but the tangent universe plane engine in Donnie represents the contamination that must be corrected. Otherwise, why did Frank wake Donnie? If the ongoing reality in S Darko is that Donnie was killed by a still unidentified engine, then S Darko is an exploration of that tangent universe that Donnie saved us from. In DD, it has to be that the engine that killed Donnie is from the real universe, and from the plane that WOULD HAVE been carrying Sam and her mother had they gone to the competition. Donnie accepted death because that is how our universe should have unfolded. Maybe the rest of Sparkle Motion died, or maybe none of them went. Unfortunately, this probably suggests that in the tangent universe, Sam and her mother are both dead.
That said, the S Darko filmmakers were too intent on maintaining the rules and structure of DD in this film, and rather than an homage they made a very unconvincing re-make. They painted themselves into a corner. Exploring Donnie's tangent universe would be OK to do, but it should have opened up new levels of reality rather than to cram us into the old ones.
That said, the S Darko filmmakers were too intent on maintaining the rules and structure of DD in this film, and rather than an homage they made a very unconvincing re-make. They painted themselves into a corner. Exploring Donnie's tangent universe would be OK to do, but it should have opened up new levels of reality rather than to cram us into the old ones.