Original version is just as good, if not better, as the "director's cut"

Rating: 8/10 (26 August 2006)

First of all, let me make it clear that this is a great film. The script, the cinematography, the music and the casting make it one of the top films of the last decade. That being said, a new viewer, who knows nothing about the film, should see the original cut before viewing the "director's cut."
What's the difference? The soundtrack of the director's cut features more tunes from the 1980s (which, according to NPR's FRESH AIR, Richard Kelly could not secure the rights to back in the day) and also incorporates chapter shots which resemble something from Wes Anderson's "The Royal Tenenbaums." Apparently the director felt that his film needed more framing; hence, the illustrated chapter pages used to break up the narrative. These chapter pages, culled from the Sparrow text on time travel, really don't add anything to the film -- in fact, they clutter an already perfect cinematic treasure. Plus one line from the "director's cut" -- which is delivered by the psycho-therapist near the end of the film , where she tells Donnie that he can "throw away his medicine, it's only a sugar pill placebo" detracts from the powerful ambiguities (even though, I assume, it was meant to call even more of his "reality" into question). The original version may not include allo of the songs that Kelly envisioned in his film, but it certainly is a tighter film from beginning to end.