Dark City (1998)

New Line degrains again

This is a warning to all who like their films in HD to look like film and not waxy video games. "Dark City" seems to be another victim of digital grain reduction and sharpening. It's not released yet but the first stills from the disc are on the net and they look waxy and sharpened. You have been warned. July 19, 2008

Not Your Usual Murder Mystery

I remember waffling something fierce on whether to see this movie. The movie trailer said, "go for it," but the premise said, "dull dull dull." I'm not someone who gets enthralled by murder mysteries. Murders are mundane and can happen anywhere, and unfortunately in real life too. I rather enjoy seeing things that you don't normally run across. At long last, I finally buckled and went with my gut instinct over the visual cues from the trailer, and I guess the rest is history.

I was captivated by the scenery instantly as well as the quirk of the characters. Keifer's agitated speech delivery made me nervous and excited. When the story unraveled into what it actually was, I was hands-down sold. July 13, 2008

Dark City should have been named dullsville.

Bored.
Bored.
Bored.
I saw this in the theater and couldn't wait for it to end.
Boring, unmemorable with a dreadful story line with acting to match.
I don't recommend this film, not when there are so many other films to watch. June 17, 2008

"Maybe one day, I'll work for you."

Dark City will always stand out as being one of the most unfairly ignored films from the 1990s. It had all the makings of a great science fiction film: top notch acting, an original plot, spectacular visual effects, clever dialogue, and tension so thick it deflects bullets. Yet it also had some things about it that doomed it to box office failure. It had no major box office draws in its cast, it was poorly marketed, and the story went over way too many people's heads. But all that is inconsequential to the quality of the film. This was a movie that should have reaped the same profits that went to big budgeted, empty CGI fests like Twister, Independence Day, and Armageddon.

Many see DC as being sort of a spiritual prelude to the Matrix series, and not just because it came out one year earlier the first Matrix film. Both deal with people in a seemingly ordinary world that is made to appear so by shadowy forces to conceal a horrifying truth. Both also have a hero who is conditioned by these puppet masters to see himself as ordinary, but as the story progresses, he learns that he has a messianic destiny. And both ask the question, "What is real?"

Here a group of bald humanoid aliens with chalk white skin control all aspects of life in a city that seems to be built according to pre-WWII aesthetics. The aliens are the last survivors of an immensely ancient and dying race. The only way they believe they are able to save themselves from extinction is to learn to be "human". Every midnight, they change everything (and I mean everything from the city's architecture to the inhabitant's memories) by "tuning". When the aliens replace the memories of ordinary man John Murdoch with those of a serial killer, the best laid plans of chalk white aliens and men go astray. Being a wanted man, Murdoch is able to "tune" a little himself when his life depends on it. Could there be more to him than that?

As I said earlier, this is one of the most underrated movies from the 1990s, and one of the greatest American science fiction movies ever made. Like just about all SF films from the 1990s, it had its fair share of CGI. Only here, it is part of the storytelling instead of a distraction from it.

The cast is also brilliant. Rufus Sewell does a fine job capturing the essence of Murdoch, an average man who finds himself in circumstances that are anything but. Playing his unfaithful (or was she?) wife is Jennifer Connelly, one actress who is just as talented as she is good looking. William Hurt gives us another fine performance as the cop that is pursuing Murdoch, but he also believes that there is more going on than what sees. Unfortunately, later in 1998 Hurt would star in the postitively dismal Lost in Space. And finally, Kiefer Sutherland looks like he had the time of his life hamming it up as the German mad scientist stereotype turncoat Dr. Schreber. His character is not very realistic, but is enjoyable to watch. None of these people for the time had the box office clout of someone like Jim Carrey or Arnold Schwarzeneggar, but that didn't stop them from making a magnificent movie.

As great as the things I mentioned above are, what really stood out to me was some of the questions this movie asked? Were the aliens really evil since they did what they did so they could survive, and not because of those time honored explanations like conquest or just plain exterminating humans? Might these aliens be what the human race could become in the distant future? Are we only the product of our accumulated memories or are we more than that? And are memories a true reflection of our souls?

But don't spend too much time thinking about that right now. Just watch and enjoy.

June 7, 2008

Wonderful Movie

Wow, this movie is great. I wish there were more science fiction releases of the same caliber as Dark City. I definitely recommend this movie for those that like thinking out of the box. Once again, great movie. May 20, 2008

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