Review of Dark City (1998) by Ben L — 29 Apr 2014

Before I get started I'll just say SPOILER ALERT from here on, because it will be terribly difficult for me to articulate my feelings about Dark City without spilling the beans and saying what exactly is going on. I think part of what hurt my opinion of this film is that I had very recently watched The Matrix. Both films have this idea of an overseer creating a false world to dupe the populace, while holding them prisoner and basically using them for their own selfish desires. The problem is that, even though the Matrix was released a year after Dark City, it told the story infinitely better. This story feels clunky and it bothered me that it didn't offer a sense of possible escape for the inhabitants. Sure John made the place more tolerable, but they're just trapped in a slightly upgraded zoo at the end and still have no recollection of who they really were before. That being said I loved the dark film noir feel of this movie. The scenes with the characters living in the city, but still feeling somehow incomplete and out of place were so enjoyable. When I still deluded myself into thinking this might be a detective film with an amnesiac who can't figure out if he's a killer, I was totally on board. Yet the more sci-fi elements they added the less I was interested, which is a very odd feeling for me because I love sci-fi.

Another big issue with Dark City is that I just don't like Rufus Sewell in the lead role. He is kind of emotionless and wooden. Sure, he effectively pulls off the frustration of not knowing who he is, but when it comes to that moment when I'm supposed to believe he is falling in love, I don't buy it. In fact I kind of found his portrayal of John Murdoch to be overly pompous and this led me to have trouble rooting for him in the end. I've never liked Kiefer Sutherland in any role, and his portrayal of the doctor gave me more reasons to not like his acting. On the opposite end of the spectrum is Jennifer Connelly who I have an undeniable love for in films ever since Labyrinth. She is lovely, and she fits brilliantly as the dame who sings in the nightclub each night in an old noir film. It's like she's been plucked from the 40s and just fell into a different era. She also is great at portraying the confused, out-of-place feeling when things start to make less sense to her but she still wants to believe in her husband. Finally, I think the biggest downfall of Dark City is that William Hurt's storyline was not the main storyline of the movie. He was absolutely amazing in every scene. I am totally on board with his journey as he starts thinking about a crime, but slowly finds himself puzzling through how his own life doesn't make sense. That was infinitely more engaging than Murdoch's mind battle with the jellyfish-possessed corpses.

The special effects in the movie are laughable. I was absolutely taken out of the film every time they used the Force (oops I mean every time they "tuned") and moved stuff with their minds. Some of the city-changing scenes were good as you watched CG buildings rising up next to practical buildings, but that was the extent of the good effects. The final battle was comical instead of intense. Watching Rufus Sewell and Ian Richardson stare ever more intently at one another is so ridiculous as you watch the building crumble around them. I was laughing out loud at this point, and even more when the jellyfish alien thing came out of Ian Richardson to snarl. I know it has to be tough because they didn't have a massive budget considering how much CG they were integrating into the film, but I can't judge based on good intentions this just looked bad. I think when they were given the tighter budget they should have made a tighter film. Tone down the alien stuff and focus more on the people trying to figure it out. Maybe don't offer the reveal of what's going on until the final frames of the movie. There was too much over-explaining, particularly from Kiefer Sutherland, it took away some of the magic. As I previously stated, I did enjoy the noir feel and much of the William Hurt/Jennifer Connelly storyline. But overall the movie ended up being one that didn't work for me because they made that the background story, and focused on the poorly executed sci-fi story instead.