OK, what was the point?

Rating: 6/10 (24 October 2017)

There are apparently two versions of Donnie Darko, which are the theatrical version and the director's cut. I can assume that I watched the original release as the Blu-ray box didn't mention anything about which version it was and according to many people, it's more mysterious as it doesn't explain much (which is something that director's cut tried to fix).
I can guess that most people who are going to read this review will hate me for saying this, but what was the point of Donnie Darko? It didn't really make any sense.
Perhaps, I should start with the positives and then going into the time travel aspects. Performances were good, especially Jake Gyllenhaal as Donnie Darko. Cinematography was neat, but nothing special. Story (if we discount time travel and Frank's abilities) is mostly alright and easy to follow. Most of the characters act in a natural way and there was no pacing issues.
But Donnie Darko wouldn't be anything if we didn't mention Frank, a man sized bunny (later revealed to be a man dressed up as a creepy bunny). He led Donnie outside, saving his life from the jet engine, that somehow managed to appear and destroy Donnie's room, and makes Donnie do absurd things after that event. This is important if we think about the plot. The movie is about the whole mystical idea of time travel and maybe "different time lines", while we follow a story line that seems to got influence from 80's teen dramas/comedies (the movie also happens to take in 1988), so there might be nostalgia value for some.
I was enjoying the movie when I was seeing it, and I was waiting for something that could blow my mind (don't blame me, it pretty much tried to make me feel like something huge was going to happen with the whole end of the world thing), but then it was revealed that Donnie killed Frank who apparently became a ghost or something, and then Donnie came back to the beginning of the movie and let the jet engine kill him. This just raises more questions.
1. If Frank came from different time line to show how small things could have large consequences, and talk about the end of the world, why did he do that? Donnie wouldn't have done the things he did, if Frank didn't intervened. Donnie just dies and no storm happens that destroys the plane, meaning that Donnie couldn't die by the jet engine and life goes on normally.
2. Did the act of saving Donnie somehow caused a mysterious storm that in a weird way destroyed a plane and made jet engine fall and go back in time (or to a different time line)? Again, why Frank showed up and made Donnie do things? Was it for the giggles? Did Frank want to be a typical ghost and scare Donnie? Wasn't it Frank's fault for leading up Donnie to kill him later? What were you trying to do? To prove that small actions have big consequences, and that choices based on future visions are meaningless?
3. How did Frank gain his abilities and became a ghost or something? What unknown force did that, God? This again makes me question Frank's motivates. He just got the time travel powers from nothing and goes to different time line to screwing around with Donnie?
4. If you are doing something that breaks your "destiny", that could destroy the world, then why didn't something similar happened when that old lady wrote a book about philosophy of time travel? I think we can assume she experienced something similar that Donnie Darko did. Why didn't jet engine also affected the time line just by killing Donnie? Does it do that, but the movie just doesn't show the consequences?
5. If the jet engine came back in time, how did it manage to reach light speed (which was mentioned in the movie) that is needed to travel in time? I'm not a scientist with the right expertise, but I thought you can only go into the future much more faster, and in the rest of the world/universe the time goes even more faster so the people, who you have met, would be much older than you.
Donnie Darko doesn't seem to follow any rules and made up everything without any explanations. Maybe director's cut explains my questions, but who knows. But just because you make your movie complex and mysterious, it doesn't make it a smart flick or immune to criticism, and it doesn't make people stupid for not understanding this movie. Time travel is a very complex idea and with some many theories. So, nobody has a perfect idea of what it is, since we don't know how it would actually works. With movies (or in any other mediums), you need to have ideas and rules that make sense in the movie's universe. If you make the idea and/or the plot inconsistent, it can break the whole movie. I honestly think David Lynch's Twin Peaks TV series and the prequel movie makes much more sense despite having situations that would be unbelievable in our world. Maybe Donnie Darko tried too hard to go with serious and "scientific" route, so in response I took it as such. The conclusion, it didn't make any sense.
Maybe it's better that time travel should be abandoned from entertainment, since it never makes any sense (unless you explain the rules and follow them throughout the story) or just follow the "Back to the Future" route and just make it entertaining.
Donnie Dork is decent, but in my opinion the moment the movie ended, the experience was almost completely ruined for me. I just think that the movie is much better if you just accept that it creates rules out of nowhere and it's overall complete nonsense.