Review of Dark City (1998) by Andrew N — 06 Oct 2011

"Dark City" is one of the most wholy orginal Sci-Fi films ever made and is also one of the most underrated. It's only natural for a film like this to be so missunerstood, seeming as it doesn't fit the description one might picture when they hear the word Sci-Fi but some need to understand that's there's more to this genre then laser guns and special effects. Visionary director "Alex Proyas"(who also directed "The Crow") brought us another film which is visually flawless but unlike "The Crow" is also flawless on prehaps every other level.

The highly original and intellegent script written by "Alex Proyas" himself,"Lem Dobbs" and David S. Goyer" follows the story of a man named "John Murdoch(Rufus Sewell) who, as the film starts wakes up in a hotel he is not familiar with and he finds that he has completely lost his memory and is somehow a wanted man for a series of murders. A women played by "Jennifer Colleny" who claims to be his Wife is after him aswell as a "Doctor" (Kiefer Sutherland). The film follows "John" on his quest as he tries to piece together the very facts of his past, whilst doing just that he comes across a group of "non-humans" known as "The Strangers" who posses the power to put humans to sleep and alter the city and it's very inhabitats. So John is left with the questions as to why the city is allways dark and for some reason not a single person can clearly tell him how to leave the city so now he must find a way to stop "The Strangers" before they take control of his mind and wipe him off the planet.

This film managed to create these non-human like characters and create a dream-like city without coming across as corny and was packed with convincing and just simply great performences by the whole cast. "Rufus Sewell" really shined in this film his performence was in every way believeable and extremely in-depth as the story evolved he simply drove the film. "Keifer Sutherland" as "Dr. Daneil Schreber" has to have given his best performence in this he just completely dominated the screen everytime he was on it with the somewhat strange charatcer. "Jennifer Colleny" was very convincing too as was "Richard O'Brien" who played "Mr Hand"(The Leader of The Strangers), he would have to be one of the best villans in sci-fi he was creepy and very diverse it was like he was just simply born to pull off this role.

Like "Blade Runner" before it they managed to create this make-believe city but even without using things we allready do have in this world it managed to come across as a wholy orignal world that we have never seen in any other film. With great cinmeatography ofcourse backed up with the highly stylish and detailed direction by "Alex Proyas" this has truly become a masterpeice of visual storytelling. You see like a few of the other greatest sci-fi's the story was told through an extremely complex usage of dialoge. There's not a massive amount of action in this so it might dissapoint some people but surely not those who actually wanna watch a great film.

I don't really need to say much more but when it comes to films that just need to be seen by more people this one is near the top of my list, outside of true sci-fi fans i'm sure most of you wouldn't have even seen this. Anyway before "The Matrix" and "The Truman Show" there was this and those two films kinda reminded me of this. Anyway if your looking for something that will challange you and keep you thinking from beginnig to end then put this one near the top of your "to do" lists...