Review of Dark City (1998) by Nbfc — 09 Jan 2018

It’s hard to believe the director (Alex Proyas) of this and The Crow would go on to deliver drek such as the Nicolas Cage disaster Knowing and Gods of Egypt!!

Starring Rufus Sewell, Kiefer Sutherland (who gives one of his oddest but best performances), Jennifer Connolly and William Hurt, DC follows an amnesiac man named John Murdoch (Sewell) who wakes up to find himself the suspect of a murder. Not only does Murdoch have to evade the the police in order to discover his true identity and clear his name, but he also has to evade a mysterious group of bald-headed men known as “The Strangers”.

Most often drawing comparisons to The Matrix (which came out a year later and over-shadowed this flick) due to it’s central themes of identity and memories, this imaginative retelling of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave is certainly not lacking in atmosphere.

The murky post-WWII dark and nightmarish cityscape feels almost like another character on it’s own and is truly a marvel in production design.

Wonderfully weird, creepy, but also heart-warming; DC more than deserves it’s strong cult following all these years later.

Oh and one piece of advise….please make sure to watch the director’s cut because the original theatrical version contains an opening narration by Kiefer Sutherland (which was added in by the studio on Proyas’ behest) that gives away the big twist of the movie.