Dark City

This movie + "The thirteen floor" + machine war (Terminator) = The Matrix

Pretty original, anything like it came afterwards. The Matrix, Thirteenth Floor and the Adjustment Bureau are the most like it but all came afterwards.
Dark City is a visually stunning masterpiece. That makes you wish that Alex Proyas’ movies after this and the Crow were just as good. I, Robot isn’t bad but doesn’t live up to his potential.

Alex Proyas, director of 1994's similarly moody action gloomer _The Crow_, brings us this bleak vision of stifling, gothic noir in a bottled city that's never seen the sun. Super stylish and visually ambitious, it's a film with a boatload of high-concept revelations and almost no sense of chill. Even the editing refuses to take breaks, with jump cuts and extreme close-ups roughly every second-and-a-half for the entire duration. That gives the whole picture a feel of frantic energy, which suits the amnesiac protagonist in his confused quest for answers, but can be exhausting for the viewer. Sometimes we just need a few beats to let the message sink in.

Then again, when you've got as much thematic ammunition as Proyas does in _Dark City_, maybe such intellectual force-feedings are preferable to a four-hour running time. It's a motion picture that often transcends the value of its components, succeeding in spite of its missteps and shortcomings. Many key elements take the form of guilty pleasures, far better in practice than they have any right to be, from the _Nosferatu_-esque pale, thin men in long black coats to the wacky, _Akira_-influenced psychokinetic duels near the end. That carries over to the not-quite-polished special effects, too, which occasionally show their seams and stitches but, somehow, feel more honest and appreciable for it.

There's a lot to soak in here, maybe too much for one movie, but I admire the effort and thoroughly enjoyed the end product. Would-be viewers should be ready to think and pay attention, lest they find themselves washed away by the raging torrent of ideas.

After all the Wachowski brothers are not so clever...

Good sci fi is tough to come by

Did you enjoy The Matrix? What if I tell you there was another movie which came right about the same time, and it tackles similar themes altogether differently? If that rouses your curiosity then Dark City is for you.

A man wakes up without knowing his past and does not understand the time and place he has just gained consciousness and is a murder suspect. This is pretty much a nice boilerplate but as the story unfolds the rabbit hole goes much deeper. The science-fiction elements come in quite early as we are introduced to a species called the Strangers and their aim to understand humans.

The cast is well done. The protagonist, Rufus Sewell was unknown to me and I almost mistook him for Ray Liotta. Not being very well known works in his favour in this story as his narrative of just another man caught in something he doesn't understand becomes much more believable. Unfortunately, he is not the best in the acting department though. That title goes to William Hurt or Jennifer Connelly. I have always liked her and even in this film, she looks stunning as usual.

Although as I said above, the concept is fairly similar to The Matrix which released one year after, the motives are quite different. The Matrix talks about the war between the man and machine, whereas Dark City tackles a much sinister philosophical curveball.

> "Or are we, in fact, more than the sum of our memories?"

This is going to last with me for some time. [spoiler]We see the manipulation of memories throughout the movie. It is an attempt to see what makes us human. As the doctor puts it, "It is our capacity of individuality".[/spoiler] That is why a farmer's son can be a soldier, a carpenter's daughter can be a musician. As a concept, this could be expanded upon in drama too. For a science-fiction setting, the movie made the best use of these lines. But there could be a lot of more to unravel here and a good director could fashion any genre out of this. These lines were a highlight for me in the film.

Considering the 90's, the CGI towards the end leaves you wanting for more, and that we know was possible just a year later, but at 27M this falls under a modest budget film. The ending sequence could have been cut short a bit considering the budget, but that does not dilute the overall impact of the film.

With all the exposition and a conclusive ending, this doesn't fall in the mindfuck category, but still, it keeps a few lingering thought behind as the credits roll. Recommended.

‘Dark City’ is a Sci-fi masterpiece I hadn’t heard of. It was reminiscent of The Matrix and Blade Runner in the symbolism, all the little details, and style. Even though it shares similarities, it still feels fresh and unique.

John Murdoch (Rufus Sewell) awakens in the middle of the night in a bathtub inside some strange hotel, with his memories erased. He leaves the bathroom and notices a dead woman lying in his room next to the bed. The phone rings, telling him his life is in danger with people coming to get him. Nothing makes sense. Who is he? Why doesn’t he remember anything? Who is the dead woman? Why is he in the hotel room? Who is coming to get him? Who called and how does he know so much about him? All these questions bombard you, and things become even stranger. The man at the check-in counter tells him he has been in the hotel for three weeks and his wallet is at some laundromat. The police are also after him as the suspect in multiple murders of female prostitutes across the city. He rushes to the laundromat for his wallet, which may jog his memories. That’s just the opening scene, and it becomes even stranger. Watch to find out!

This film is surreal. As you are taken through multiple dark twists and turns, everything is not as it seems. The intense story and no-holds-barred filming style draw you into this bizarre world. It’s not always easy to follow the film noir style, but it grips you from the opening scene to the closing scene. The clever film doesn’t provide you with all the answers up-front, keeping you guessing and on your toes. Of course, once you have the answers, it all makes sense. Not everything gets answered, though. There is also a masterful placement of symbols that hints at what is coming, but I missed most of them (or couldn’t understand). I bet I would notice more of them upon rewatch, especially after knowing how the film ends. I don’t think you can replicate the initial viewing.

The direction, writing, and casting are excellent. Rufus Sewell, the ravishing Jennifer Connelly, and William Hurt have outstanding chemistry. The acting of the entire cast, including Kiefer Sutherland and Richard O’Brien as the villain, takes your breath away. Hats off to the direction and creative original screenplay by Alex Proyas, who I have never heard of. The only other film from him I have seen is ‘I, Robot’, based on Isaac Asimov’s novel. Special effects, fitting sounds, visuals, and the cyberpunk atmosphere draw you into another universe. The pacing and editing occasionally felt odd. The Matrix, filmed after this, reused some rooftop sets from this movie, which you might recognize.

Would I recommend this? It’s not a must-watch but I think one of the better films I have watched. It’s not always easy to follow, but the thriller aspect is enjoyable.

Absolutely great movie with exceptional plot and lovely atmosphere..Idea was well excecuted..I didn't enjoy final fight scene but the whole movie is unique and worths for sure a watch! 7.7/10!

*Note: This review pertains to the Director’s Cut*

[7.0/10] I don’t know what it is about the nineties that gave us this type of film. Whether it’s *Dark City*, or *City of Lost Children*, or even *The Matrix*, it seems like that decade provided unique opportunities for reality-challenging, green-tinted art deco, chosen one stories about breaking through an oppressive, kafkaesque system. There’s the same grimy trippiness, the same sort of heady themes wrapped in a quasi-blockbuster package, and the same sense of dreamlike, steampunk meets futurism designs at play.

*Dark City* is a solid rendition of the form, leaning a bit more into the noir aspects before diving headlong into science fiction, but I couldn’t help seeing the bits and pieces other films borrowed from it, or the way that later works played in the same space. If you take *Dark City* and subtract *City of Lost Children*, you basically end up with *Memento* and the same sort of “Who are we really?”-questioning, cinematic identity crisis. If you throw in some secret identities and take away a bit of sci-fi, you get what comes off like a spiritual successor to the Tim Burton Batman films. If you want to focus more on the normal guy stuck in an abnormal world, you can default to *Brazil*.

And if you’re interested in another work featuring maze-like imagery, individuals having their identities swapped out and tampered with, growing realizations about that ethically-questionable walled garden, co-written by one of the screenwriters of *The Dark Knight*, you can even pop over to HBO and watch *Westworld*.

With all that shared DNA, what makes *Dark City* memorable and distinctive? The production design and special effects for one. Even twenty years later, where CGI is omnipresent and representing just about anything on screen is within the realm of the possible, there’s a fair amount of “how did they do that?” at play here. The titular metropolis morphs and shifts and transmografies itself as the film’s villains rearrange and reorchestrate it in a wild, urban ballet. Nothing sells the otherworldliness of this place better than those dramatic visual flourishes amid the film’s big reveal.

But even when the movie isn’t wowing you with its effects, the look and feel of this peculiar city grabs you from the earliest moments of the film. There too, there’s touches of outsized design and decor that Tim Burton would popularize in the 1990s and that successors like *Sin City* would pick up. But the quasi-futuristic noir aesthetic, the brutalist intricacies of the Strangers’ home base, the occasional lurid greens and other flashes of color buried in the sturm und drang give the film a particular character even if you were to watch it on mute.

There’s also plenty of interesting thoughts going on under the hood. At base, the film asks probing questions about how we define who we are, the extent to which our identities are mutable, and how we make meaning in a world constructed without it. The notion of extraterrestrial beings toying with our minds and our environment as one grand study of the human soul, something they claim to lack, creates plenty of opportunities to dramatize those queries in a fashion that only science fiction can achieve.

And yet, the film slowly but surely breaks down after its big reveal. The times when John Murdock and others grapple with the senselessness of their existence captures a certain sense of existentialist ennui and anxiety. Once the truth is unveiled, there’s plenty of faux-portentous dialogue trying to unpack it. But from there on out, the film becomes more and more a mere vehicle for those ideas and an ambitious but familiar actioner than a propulsive and original story.

In the end, John Murdock is the chosen one. He breaks free from his oppressors and uses his powers to defeat them, and a new day dawns. Sure, at a certain level of generality you can break down pretty much every film into broad tropes. But *Dark City* mixes fairly standard noir and chosen one story beats, and hopes you won’t notice because you’re too wrapped up in the movie’s exquisite texture. That texture is fantastic, but at a certain point it’s hard to discern why we should care about these people.

Aside from the costuming, the styling, and the world they inhabit, none of the film’s central personalities are particularly memorable. Rufus Sewell’s John Murdoch is the standard issue nineties film protagonist, with little beyond his superpowers to distinguish him. Jennifer Connelly is the usual femme fatale; William Hurt is the usual gumshoe, and the cadre of bald, creepy-looking alien inhabitants are memorable for their look and demeanor, but not for any particular sort of internal life, even the one who steals John’s memories. Only Keifer Sutherland really stands out, and that’s mostly because he goes full ham as the quisling human assisting his alien oppressors. It’s a choice, but not necessarily a good one.

That’s the major problem with *Dark City*. For all that outstanding design-work and all the intriguing ideas the film’s infused with, it struggles to tie any of it to characters worth investing in. The dialogue is leaden; the performances are broad and unconvincing, and the story is a big ball of mush rolling down a grassy hill rather than a clear, building narrative. Part of that sludge-y story sense helps contribute to the intentionally disorienting qualities of the film, putting the audience in the same shoes as its protagonist. But it doesn't stop when all of the screenwriters’ cards are on the table, suggesting it was an accidental result rather than a deliberate choice, or at least something they didn’t know when to stop.

The aesthetics alone are reason enough to stop by *Dark City*. The philosophical underpinnings of its Allegory of the Cave-like tale provide plenty of reasons to chew on the film’s implications. But those ideas often feel unfinished and not fully realized, wrapped up in people and plot points that can’t quite support those lofty themes nor justify the narrative on their own. The great elements of the film -- its look, its feel, and its ideas -- just barely outweigh the nuts and bolts narrative and character choices that leave it as something a little lesser than its influences, contemporaries, or successors.

An alien race has abducted a city of humans and is performing experiments on them to try to find out the nature of the human soul. A good movie, often compared to The Matrix movies, which I still prefer (at least the first part) over Dark City!