From rec.arts.sf.reviews Fri Apr 3 21:37:10 1998 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lejonet.se!linkoping.trab.se!malmo.trab.se!feed1.news.luth.se!luth.se!Cabal.CESspool!bofh.vszbr.cz!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!worldnet.att.net!news.u.washington.edu!grahams From: Matthew Brissette Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.current-films,rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: Dark City (1998) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.movies Date: 28 Feb 1998 06:35:31 GMT Organization: None Lines: 66 Approved: graham@ee.washington.edu Message-ID: <6d8b7j$qpv$1@nntp5.u.washington.edu> Reply-To: mouche@rodier.ca NNTP-Posting-Host: homer22.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp5.u.washington.edu 888647731 27455 (None) 140.142.64.2 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: grahams Summary: r.a.m.r. #11228 Keywords: author=brissette X-Questions-to: movie-rev-mod@www.ee.washington.edu X-Submissions-to: movie-reviews@www.ee.washington.edu Originator: grahams@homer22.u.washington.edu Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.current-films:199139 rec.arts.movies.reviews:10553 rec.arts.sf.reviews:1800 For about five minutes , Dark City is the most boring experience of your life: A narrator explains how beings from a distant galaxy are experimenting on us poor humans to gain better understanding of the soul. These beings , called strangers , use a technique called "tuning" to shape reality into whatever fits their purposes. Following this corny intro , we are introduced to our heroes and villains at such a rapid fire pace that we fail to become immersed in this film. So yeah , for five minutes Dark City left me wondering if i should abandon my jumbo tub o' crispy , threatening to establish a permanent home in my throat and foul tasting pieces of dried up boogers ( commonly known as popcorn ) to the mercy of the kid kicking the back of my seat. Then the fun began... Let me tell you , Dark City is the real deal. An expertly woven story , more twists and turns than Ronald Reagan 's brow , acting ranging superb to good , a creepy music score and the coolest special effects in recent memory. Now i know what you are thinking , that any second from now i will start singing a song praising the glory of this movie. You might even suspect i think that Dark City is the second coming of movies. Eeeenh! Wrong , i am not trying to get more people into theaters to see this flick , as a matter of fact i happen to think that some people should stay away from it and stick to more healthy flicks like Titanic and Good Will Hunting. Movies like this cater to a very small audience. Let me put it this way , if you hated Event Horizon because of it's religious overtones , hated the Devil 's Advocate because you thought that "it was all a dream" like some idiots i know and had trouble swallowing Contact because the possibility of alien life is way over your head...stay away from this movie. All you will do is walk away from it and tell all your friends that "it 's so darned stupid". That 's how closed minded most people are. End of rant. If you liked to movies mentioned above then you will enjoy Dark City. Not that the Devil and religion in general are important in this story but if you can buy that the Devil is here on earth , you have the necessary requirements to appreciate DC. I will not give away anything more of the plot , just like the trailers for the movie. If you know too much it will ruin the half dozen surprises scattered throughout the movie. Suffice it to say , your jaw will drop to the sticky theater floor more than once. ( Just watch out for the green stuff on the floors , i hear it 's radioactif. ) In fact , i felt that the less than talkative trailers added to the fun i had. Who needs to see Wesley Snipes jump from the building in the trailer for U.S Marshalls? Or Bruce Willis save the kid from Mercury Rising before the train crushes him? But i am moving away from my review. Rufus Sewell stars , for some reason he reminded me of Luke Skywalker. Especially during his final confrontation with the head stranger ( strangest stranger? ) who looks a bit like an unmasked Darth Vader. ( You know , the old dried up prune look. ) Anyway , i recommend Dark City over most movies now in theaters , except for most of the oscar nominated ones. All in all , one heck of a good time. Rating: 3 and a half stars out of 4 for creepy bad guys , the best morphing effects ever , several "now i get it" moments and the single best , explosive , pulse pounding , Luke versus Vader round three and there will not be a round four , awesome ending ever. From rec.arts.sf.reviews Fri Apr 3 21:37:27 1998 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lejonet.se!linkoping.trab.se!malmo.trab.se!feed1.news.luth.se!luth.se!cam-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!newsfeed.direct.ca!news.u.washington.edu!grahams From: Phil St-Germain Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: Dark City (1998) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.movies Date: 4 Mar 1998 17:33:40 GMT Organization: University of Washington Lines: 78 Approved: graham@ee.washington.edu Message-ID: <6dk39k$qe0$1@nntp5.u.washington.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: homer16.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp5.u.washington.edu 889032820 27072 (None) 140.142.64.2 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: grahams Summary: r.a.m.r. #11298 Keywords: author=st-germain X-Questions-to: movie-rev-mod@www.ee.washington.edu X-Submissions-to: movie-reviews@www.ee.washington.edu Originator: grahams@homer16.u.washington.edu Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:10636 rec.arts.sf.reviews:1806 Dark City Science-fiction **1/2 (sur ****) [moyen] 1998, 103 minutes Réalisé par Alex Proyas Mettant en vedetteRufus Sewell, Kiefer Sutherland, Jennifer Connelly, Richard O'Brien, Ian Richardson, William Hurt Écrit par Alex Proyas, Lem Dobbs et David S. Goyer Produit par Andrew Mason et Alex Proyas Avant d'avoir visionné cette production, j'avais lu, dans certaines critiques, les comparaisons qu'établissaient les gens en question avec des films comme "Blade Runner" ou "Metropolis", au point de vue de la qualité visuelle. J'étais donc plutôt intrigué et mes attentes étaient assez grandes... mais en même temps, je ne me faisais pas d'illusions. Maintenant, je ne peux pas dire avoir été très déçu, mais je crois tout de même que "Dark City" aurait pu s'avérer une expérience de science-fiction plus mémorable. Au tout début du film, nous sommes témoins de l'aspect cauchemardesque du monde dans lequel vivent les habitants de cette planète, une "planète bleue" où il fait toujours nuit. De plus, à chaque midi, tous les gens s'endorment... en fait, presque tous. Durant cette période de temps, il semble que des gestes bizarres sont commis. On nous présente ensuite le personnage central (Sewell), qui souffre d'amnésie, et qui apprendra un peu plus tard que son nom est John Murdoch. Les causes de ses failles de mémoire? Le Dr. Schreber (Sutherland), un énigmatique personnage, l'appel aussitôt pour lui dire qu'une erreur s'est produite et que sa mémoire ne lui reviendra plus. Intrigué, Murdoch scrute l'environnement et aperçoit avec panique le cadavre d'une prostituée dans sa demeure. Affolé, il décampe et tente de se cacher des authorités policières, incluant un détective (Hurt). Au cours de sa fuite, il croise le fer avec une armée de personnages étranges, vêtus de noirs et ayant le visage blanc, et possédant d'incroyable pouvoirs. Dans sa recherche, il en apprendra plus sur celle qui est supposée être sa femme, Emma (Connelly), sur le docteur, ainsi que sur ses propres souvenirs. L'histoire de "Dark City" est plutôt frustrante. Elle progresse à un rythme étonamment vif, mais peu de péripéties arrivent à bien capter notre intérêt. Malgré ceci, il nous est possible de noter la brillance de certaines idées. Toutefois, c'est cette brillance passagère qui est le problème principal: on ne cesse de constater combien le film aurait pu être supérieur. Pour chaque minute impressionnante, par exemple, on doit se résoudre à en visionner une dizaine d'autres plus lassantes. Ça rend donc le film fort intéressant lorsqu'on repense aux meilleurs moments; mais en tant que tout, ça laisse à désirer. J'ai eu beau trouver le film inégal, je ne peux passer sous silence l'excellent étalage d'effets spéciaux. Beaucoup plus beau que plusieurs des films de science-fiction à être sortis en salles récemment, le réalisateur Alex Proyas, un peu comme dans son précédent film ("The Crow", au cours duquel l'acteur Brandon Lee est décédé), nous offre un monde superbement conçu. Il est évident qu'il emprunte à un certain nombre de classiques de science-fiction, mais arrive à injecter dans sa planète un soupçon d'originalité rendant le tout très professionnel. Donc, "Dark City" fait montre d'une intrigue mystérieuse et de trucages remarquables. Qu'est-ce qui, alors, m'empêche de le comparer avec quelques uns de mes films favoris du genre? Premièrement, le rythme n'est pas assez soutenu. Sa durée n'est pas trop longue: c'est plutôt qu'il y a de longues période de temps où rien ne se produit. Deuxièmement, l'équipe d'acteurs est louable, mais sans plus. Dans "Blade Runner", nous retrouvions de charismatiques acteurs tels que Harrison, Rutger Hauer et Edward James Olmos. Ici, les comédiens ne sont pas mauvais (notamment Kiefer Sutherland, qui semble s'amuser ferme), mais ce n'est rien pour écrire à sa mère. Finalement, le climat général est très froid: nous ne nous identifions à personne, et la tension n'est pas toujours au point. Malgré ces problèmes, je me dois de recommander "Dark City" aux fervents amateurs de science-fiction recherchant une nouvelle production à se mettre sous la dent. J'ajoute toutefois un bémol: ne vous attendez pas à trop (en faisant exception de la qualité visuelle). Ce n'est pas un classique. Il contient quand même suffisamment de bons moments pour nous empêcher de tomber endormis comme les habitants de la planète du film. Évaluation de Philippe St-Germain, Copyright, 1998. From rec.arts.sf.reviews Fri Apr 3 21:37:34 1998 From: "Scott J. Promish" Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: Dark City (1998) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.movies Date: 4 Mar 1998 17:45:27 GMT Organization: Concentric Internet Services Lines: 52 Approved: graham@ee.washington.edu Message-ID: <6dk3vn$qvd$1@nntp5.u.washington.edu> Reply-To: scottjp@cris.com NNTP-Posting-Host: homer35.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp5.u.washington.edu 889033527 27629 (None) 140.142.64.4 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: grahams Summary: r.a.m.r. #11303 Keywords: author=promish X-Questions-to: movie-rev-mod@www.ee.washington.edu X-Submissions-to: movie-reviews@www.ee.washington.edu Originator: grahams@homer35.u.washington.edu Path: news.ifm.liu.se!genius.dat.hk-r.se!seunet!news2.swip.net!news.sebank.se!seunet!mn7.swip.net!mn6.swip.net!nntp.uio.no!arclight.uoregon.edu!news.sprintisp.com!sprintisp!worldnet.att.net!news.u.washington.edu!grahams Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:10520 rec.arts.sf.reviews:1797 DARK CITY (1998) Review (c) 1998 Scott J. Promish DARK CITY takes place in a metropolis of clockwork people that is haunted by a pale race of humanoids called Strangers. As the misleadingly bland title implies, it is a city of eternal night. A man named John Murdoch wakes up in his hotel room with amnesia and a dead whore next to his bed. As we find out, this is the latest in a series of murders, and Murdoch becomes a wanted man. The Strangers are after him as well, for Murdoch is not like the other citizens. He doesn’t sleep when everyone else does, and he possesses the Strangers’ ability to “tune,” or psychically manipulate matter. Such a rogue element cannot be allowed to interfere with the Strangers’ plans, and he must be eliminated. Who is Murdoch really? What are the Strangers? And why doesn’t anyone remember ever being outside the city? These are the mysteries we are presented with. The story is remniscent of some classic episodes of ‘The Twilight Zone’, one in particular which I won’t name for fear of indirectly giving spoilers. The actors are good in roles that unfortunately don’t offer much character development or depth (which is the film's only real flaw.) Kiefer Sutherland stands out the most as a scientist employed by the Strangers to aid them in their experiments. His broken speech pattern sounds awkward at first, but after a couple appearances it begins to seem natural. Rufus Sewell (COLD COMFORT FARM) is likable as the hero of the piece. The human characters are rounded out by Jennifer Connelly as Murdoch’s wife Emma, and William Hurt as the inspector on Murdoch’s case. The Strangers are suitably eerie, with the major roles being filled by Ian Richardson (BRAZIL) and Richard O’Brien (THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW.) The film is directed by Alex Proyas, who debuted in 1994 with a very good adaptation of James O’Barr’s graphic novel series THE CROW. Visually, the film is stunning. The sets resemble a 1940’s-era America, with a distinctly industrialized bent. Most everything is cast in a greenish brown light (blue/black for scenes in the Strangers’ lair), and evokes the look of THE CITY OF LOST CHILDREN. The effects are amazing during the tuning sessions; brick and metal buildings grow like vegetation, and melt and merge like clay. It’s like sitting inside a Dali painting. DARK CITY is a satisfying fantasy, a surreal study of identity, memory and reality that still has me thinking about it and liking it even more after I’ve seen it. Recommended especially if you get off on philosophy. [Review written 3 March 1998] From rec.arts.sf.reviews Fri Apr 3 21:37:58 1998 From: PBBP24A@prodigy.com (Edward Johnson-ott) Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: Dark City (1998) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.movies Date: 6 Mar 1998 05:57:58 GMT Organization: Prodigy Services Company 1-800-PRODIGY Lines: 97 Approved: graham@ee.washington.edu Distribution: world Message-ID: <6do396$cep$1@nntp5.u.washington.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: homer18.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp5.u.washington.edu 889163878 12761 (None) 140.142.64.4 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: grahams Summary: r.a.m.r. #11341 Keywords: author=johnson-ott X-Questions-to: movie-rev-mod@www.ee.washington.edu X-Submissions-to: movie-reviews@www.ee.washington.edu Originator: grahams@homer18.u.washington.edu Path: news.ifm.liu.se!genius.dat.hk-r.se!news.lth.se!feed1.news.luth.se!luth.se!news.algonet.se!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!worldnet.att.net!news.u.washington.edu!grahams Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:10536 rec.arts.sf.reviews:1798 Dark City (1998) Rufus Sewell, Kiefer Sutherland, Jennifer Connelly, Richard O'Brien, Ian Richardson, William Hurt. Directed by Alex Proyas. 104 minutes. Rated R, 3.5 stars (out of five stars) Review by Ed Johnson-Ott, NUVO Newsweekly www.nuvo-online.com/film/ Archive reviews at http://us.imdb.com/M/reviews_by?Edward+Johnson-ott What if you aren't who you think you are? What if your memories are manufactured? What if otherworldly beings slip into your mind while you sleep, changing your identity as casually as one changes TV stations? That's the premise of Alex Proyas' striking new sci-fi noir thriller. He calls it "Dark City." Mental health professionals might call it "Paranoia Helper." Using extremely quick edits, sensuous computer graphics, and a palette of blacks, browns and blues, with an occasional splash of red, Proyas ("The Crow") puts you smack in the middle of a nightmare from which you cannot awake. The story employs a fractured dream logic, although attentive viewers will have no problem following the narrative flow. You could spend hours listing all the film's reference points. "Brazil," "Blade Runner," "Altered States," "Metropolis," "Twin Peaks," and "The Prisoner" spring to mind, but there are many other touch points. The bottom line, though, is that Proyas has crafted a vision distinctly his own. "Dark City" has an amazingly rich texture and an extraordinary sense of place. Even as the buildings themselves twist from one shape to another, you feel as if you could walk down their desolate halls. Despite periodic lapses into cheesiness, "Dark City" is memorable filmmaking, more an experience than simply a movie. It begins when John Murdoch (Rufus Sewell) wakes up in the bathtub of a seedy hotel suite. There's a dead prostitute in the room, but he can't remember if he killed her. For that matter, he can't remember anything about his past. While desperately trying to collect himself, Murdoch receives a call from a Dr. Schreber (Kiefer Sutherland,) urging him to flee the room immediately. In short order, Murdoch learns that a lot of people are looking for him. Inspector Frank Bumstead (William Hurt) wants him in connection with a string of vicious murders. His wife Emma (Jennifer Connelly) wants to make amends for cheating on him. And the Strangers want him very badly. Bedecked in long overcoats as they silently fly through the night skies, the pallid bald pursuers look like the hellish spawn of Uncle Fester and Pinhead, filtered through a Magritte painting. So who are the Strangers and what are they up to? It would be best to find out during the course of the story, but since Proyas spills the beans in an unnecessary voice-over at the beginning of the film, I'll recount them here. The Strangers are the last of an alien race, conducting experiments on humanity from their headquarters deep beneath the city. Possessed of a power called "tuning," they can stop time, make people fall asleep with the wave of a hand, and reshape physical reality through concentration alone. At the stroke of twelve every night (and it's always night,) they implant memories and identities in various citizens, then carefully watch the results. But sometimes the implants don't go quite right, as evidenced by Murdoch. Further complicating the Strangers’ agenda is the fact that Murdoch is also able to tune. Gradually, Murdoch changes from panicked victim to avenging warrior as he pursues vague memories of an idyllic place called Shell Beach, all while honing his newfound powers. Clearly it's just a matter of time before he confronts the aliens and dares them to "Go ahead, make my night." Rufus Sewell handles Murdoch well, investing the character with just the right amounts of urgency and strength. Hurt and Connelly turn in sturdy enough performances, given the befuddled nature required of their characters. Richard O’Brien, who created "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" and played Riff-Raff, gives a stylish turn as Mr. Hand, lead hatchet man for the Strangers. The oddest performance comes from Kiefer Sutherland, affecting a bizarre, quasi-Peter Lorre impression as Dr. Schreber. Sutherland says two...or three...words then he...pauses and...breathes then he...continues speaking. The halting, breathy speech style is just as annoying onscreen as it was in that sentence. Performances and plot aside, "Dark City" is a feast for the eyes. The city has the worn look of New York in the 40s or 50s, with retro funkiness and art deco flourishes everywhere. Computer animated shots of the buildings morphing from one shape to another are dazzling, as are the scenes of the Strangers gliding through the air. The effects are occassionally cheesy, particularly when Murdoch has a literal battle of wills with head Stranger Mr. Book (Ian Richardson,) but with a vision as expansive as Proyas', the flubs are easy to overlook. With it's roots firmly in the "Heavy Metal" school of adolescent trippiness, "Dark City" makes no groundbreaking statements, but that's fine. Proyas has taken a clever idea, added some phenomenal imagery and created one whale of an apocalyptic dreamscape. During a season where most movies look like photocopies of each other, "Dark City" is a most welcome diversion. Copyright 1998, Ed Johnson-Ott From rec.arts.sf.reviews Fri Apr 3 21:38:13 1998 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lejonet.se!linkoping.trab.se!malmo.trab.se!feed1.news.luth.se!luth.se!sunqbc.risq.qc.ca!news-peer-east.sprintlink.net!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!worldnet.att.net!news.u.washington.edu!grahams From: Craig Roush Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: Dark City (1998) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.movies Date: 7 Mar 1998 17:41:34 GMT Organization: Exec-PC BBS Internet - Milwaukee, WI Lines: 68 Approved: graham@ee.washington.edu Message-ID: <6ds0se$lqt$1@nntp5.u.washington.edu> Reply-To: kinnopio@execpc.com NNTP-Posting-Host: homer12.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp5.u.washington.edu 889292494 22365 (None) 140.142.64.7 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: grahams Summary: r.a.m.r. #11365 Keywords: author=roush X-Questions-to: movie-rev-mod@www.ee.washington.edu X-Submissions-to: movie-reviews@www.ee.washington.edu Originator: grahams@homer12.u.washington.edu Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:10660 rec.arts.sf.reviews:1810 DARK CITY Release Date: February 27, 1998 Starring: Rufus Sewell, Kiefer Sutherland, Jennifer Connelly, Richard O'Brien, Ian Richardson, William Hurt Directed by: Alex Proyas Distributed by: New Line Cinema MPAA Rating: R (violent images, some sexuality) URL: http://www.execpc.com/~kinnopio/reviews/1998/darkcity.htm Originality is probably the most advantageous as well as the most detrimental component of any new movie. It's been proposed that the American cinema audiences are being "dumbed down" by the senseless violence, almost unrestricted sexuality, and blatant disregard for high culture of any kind. Naturally, then, ingesting an intriguing and original plot is going to be a tough meal. However, if one can sit up in the theater and throw themself whole-heartedly at the mercy of the director and the cast, one is bound to hear a good story once and awhile. DARK CITY, by far the most original and probably the best movie I have seen this year, is that good story. The intellectual science fiction isn't anything new - it's the same thinking man's movie as CONTACT and GATTACA. But Director Alex Proyas isn't content to let DARK CITY fall to the doldrums of meaningless sci-fi. There's one problem with that - he's got to keep the audience's attention. His answer: suspense and niblets of tense action. Kudos to both he and the scriptwriter for nimbly mixing watchable action sequences in with one drawn-out, suspensefully-orchestrated plot. The weirdness that is the atmosphere for that plot is sure to deter some - I can't say I don't prefer Jodie Foster in CONTACT to Rufus Sewell here - but as film critic James Berardinelli said of this movie, it can't suffer from too much atmosphere. The plot that inhabits said atmosphere is a what-if scenario. As many bright minds have previously philosophied, imagine your world exists on the thumbnail of a giant. Imagine that you are nothing but an experiment in the test tube of an omnipotent alchemist. In this case, John Murdoch (Sewell) lives in a world that's being run by the Strangers - a strange breed whose name is aptly chosen. Headed up by respectable performances by Richard O'Brien and Ian Richardson, their goal is to study the human race in the confines of a city they have created. Their motive is to learn to harness the power of the human soul as a vehicle for themselves, for their world is dying and they need a new existence. Most humans fall prey to their all-powerful telepathy, but Murdoch is immune and hence must be killed - even as he struggles to figure out the Strangers' esoteric world. The plot is contained nicely and well-generated given the setting. Several movies have suffered because their settings were too dark and enclosed to offer much watchability. In DARK CITY, on the other hand, by the time Sewell has stepped into the sunlight in the final scene, the audience feels an undescribable awe at the power of sunlight. One of DARK CITY's plot facets was the absence of day, which seems as unreal to the audience as it does to the characters. The characters are drawn up in clear opposition of each other - good and bad are immediately decided by the audience - and my only complaint is that some of the characters have little substance and no motivation. Other than that, DARK CITY is sure to be one of the year's more memorable titles, and is recommendable to most everyone. FINAL AWARD FOR "DARK CITY": 3.0 stars - a good movie. -- Craig Roush kinnopio@execpc.com -- Kinnopio's Movie Reviews http://www.execpc.com/~kinnopio From rec.arts.sf.reviews Fri Apr 3 21:38:37 1998 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed1.news.luth.se!luth.se!fu-berlin.de!newsfeed.direct.ca!news.u.washington.edu!grahams From: Steve Kong Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: Dark City (1998) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.movies Date: 8 Mar 1998 18:21:13 GMT Organization: The Hard Boiled Movie Page (http://boiled.sbay.org/boiled/) Lines: 94 Approved: graham@ee.washington.edu Message-ID: <6dunip$rr4$1@nntp5.u.washington.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: homer21.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp5.u.washington.edu 889381273 28516 (None) 140.142.64.4 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: grahams Summary: r.a.m.r. #11378 Keywords: author=kong X-Questions-to: movie-rev-mod@www.ee.washington.edu X-Submissions-to: movie-reviews@www.ee.washington.edu Originator: grahams@homer21.u.washington.edu Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:10563 rec.arts.sf.reviews:1801 DARK CITY (1998) A film review by Steve Kong Edited by Cher Johnson Copyright 1998 Steve Kong Some movies create two different worlds: one for the trailer and one for the actual movie. The trailer for Dark City was mysterious. It induced a feeling of awe for what the movie is about. The visuals, the loud audio, and the mysterious text all worked together to create this feeling of awe. Does the movie live up to the trailer? And does Dark City carry through with the incredible world that we glimpsed in the trailer? Alex Proyas is best known for the dark world and mood that he created for Brandon Lee's last film, The Crow. But, his work was overshadowed by the tragic death of Lee. This time with Dark City, Proyas is let loose to work and create a world that truly lives up to its name. Dark City is a luscious looking film—and even that is an understatement. The world that Proyas puts up on the screen is a strange mix of Ridley Scott's Blade Runner and Tim Burton's Batman world. Though not set in a technological wonder like Blade Runner the world does overshadow Batman's world. I think that this is what Burton was aiming for with his original Batman but was unable to create it. The movie is not all visuals, though. It opens with a dreary monologue by a Dr. Schreber (Kiefer Sutherland) which explains about "The Strangers." It seems that The Strangers are a group of aliens who have taken beings from a world—though never specified as the Earth—and offloaded them onto the Strangers' world. Here on the Strangers' world the humans become specimens for the Strangers' experiments. The Strangers are a slowly dying race and that are looking to beat their mortality and they think that they can find it in the human soul. We then are introduced to the main character of the film, John Murdoch (Rufus Sewell), who wakes up in a motel room with a dead prostitute next to his bed. Murdoch looks around the room for clues to what happened and finds a few things. Murdoch,though, has had a complete loss of memory and is unsure if he is a killer or not. Inspector Bumstead (William Hurt) is assigned to the case and is on the trailer of Murdoch. Murdoch tries to find out who he really is and follows a trail of clues which leads him to many things, including his wife, Emma (Jennifer Connelly). We question if Murdoch is really the killer as we discover more about how Dark City really operates. It seems that in the Dark City there is no day time; it's a continuous night, and for a good reason. The script for Dark City comes from a story by Proyas and is written by Proyas, Lem Dobbs and David S. Goyer. It introduces a lot of interesting ideas for the audience to think about. Dark City questions one's real identity and one's reality. Who are we really? What makes us who we are? Is this all real? The problem with the script is that it tries overly hard to explain every idea introduced and leaves nothing for the audience to think about. Every time something mysterious, awe inspiring, or interesting is introduced a character stops everything and gives a long monologue explaining what it is about. The characters are too talky. I'm a big X-Files fan and for a good reason, the writers for The X-Files know that not everything needs to be explained, that some things are best left to the audience's imagination and left for the audience to chew over. It is this ambiguity of The X-Files that makes it so enjoyable. Had Proyas, Dobbs, and Goyer watched a few more episodes of The X-Files they would have learned the same. Proyas, Dobbs, and Goyer leave nothing to the audience's imagination— everything is clearly explained and nothing is left in the dark. Dark City's visuals are stunning. The city that these characters live in is incredible with its tall skyline, the dark ominous buildings, the retro look of everything, and the clear lack of lighting. It creates an atmosphere for the movie that comes very close to overshadowing the story itself. The one thing, and this could be seen as a bad thing, that subdues the overly large presence of the city is Proyas' editing. Proyas edits the film like a music video or a movie trailer. Everything comes in quick flashes and there are little or no steady shots for us to really see how characters are reacting. Also there are no shots that let us fully take in the city and atmosphere that Proyas created for the movie. The editing of the film feels like a comic book—flashing from one panel to the next, not taking anytime to slow down and let the audience look at the visuals. The performances by the cast are all about equal. They come close to being a bit too bland, though they never slip into that territory. Rufus Sewell, who you can also catch in the current Dangerous Beauty, fares a little better than the rest of the cast. Dark City is one of those films that draws you in even though it has some outstanding flaws. I enjoyed Dark City and all the ideas that it generates, but I enjoyed the visuals the most. Dark City is not a "style over substance" film. Actually, it can be argued that Dark City has a little more substance than it really needs. I recommend the film, though it doesn't create enough to warrant a Don't Miss nod. --- steve kong reviews@boiled.sbay.org find the latest movie reviews at the hard boiled movie page http://boiled.sbay.org/boiled/ From rec.arts.sf.reviews Fri Apr 3 21:38:41 1998 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed1.news.luth.se!luth.se!sunqbc.risq.qc.ca!news-peer-east.sprintlink.net!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!worldnet.att.net!news.u.washington.edu!grahams From: Curtis Edmonds Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: Dark City (1998) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.movies Date: 9 Mar 1998 05:17:52 GMT Organization: Hollywood Stock Brokerage & Resource Lines: 95 Approved: graham@ee.washington.edu Message-ID: <6dvu20$s9t$1@nntp5.u.washington.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: homer03.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp5.u.washington.edu 889420672 28989 (None) 140.142.64.6 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: grahams Summary: r.a.m.r. #11407 Keywords: author=edmonds X-Questions-to: movie-rev-mod@www.ee.washington.edu X-Submissions-to: movie-reviews@www.ee.washington.edu Originator: grahams@homer03.u.washington.edu Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:10580 rec.arts.sf.reviews:1802 by Curtis Edmonds -- blueduck@hsbr.org The best thing -- in fact, the only good thing -- I can say about Dark City is that it made me want to go see L.A. Confidential again. Or go rent Body Heat, to see William Hurt do some real noir. Or even -- God help me -- Palmetto. Alex Proyas's new movie screams atmosphere. I screamed, too, "Get me out of this theater!" New Line Cinema spent millions of dollars creating the expressionistic film noir visuals and paying the actors, and doesn't have any way to get it back. I paid $4.25 for a matinee screening and don't have any way to get my money back, either. You'll hear a lot from other critics about the look and feel of this movie. I will admit that the cinematographers and costume designers and set artists and CGI graphics geeks all worked hard to create a stunning, nightmarish future world where it's always a late night in 1948, complete with rotary phones and automats and fedoras. I've got news for you fellows -- I don't care how hard you worked, or how visually stunning this movie looks -- you wasted your time and mine, working on a movie without a plot, without a clear sense of direction of where it wanted to go, without a soul or a reason to care. The movie starts out oh-so-promising. John Murdoch (Rufus Sewell) is lying in a bathtub in the sort of seedy hotel that in real life, would have been boarded up long ago. There is a dead, mutilated prostitute in the other room -- a surprise, as he has lost his memory. The phone rings: it's a sinister-sounding man, claiming to be his doctor, telling him to flee for his life. All well and good, right? Wrong. Apparently, someone decided that the audience was just a bit too dim to figure out the intricacies of the plot. (This is getting to be a popular assumption in Hollywood.) So, the actual beginning of the movie is not Sewell running for his life, rather, it's a voice-over narration by the aforementioned doctor (Keifer Sutherland) explaining exactly what is going on and who is responsible. It's as though Sam the piano player had told us that Rick and Ilsa had been getting it on in Paris in the first three minutes of Casablanca. No, wait, that's not fair to Casablanca. It's more like watching a new plotline at the first of the show -- or if you want to know how I really feel, having an off-screen narrator explain that Gilligan won't be getting off the island in this episode. >From here, the coherence of the plot goes down faster than (insert Monica Lewinsky joke here). The characters just wander around the city aimlessly and bump into each other for no apparent reason, and that's what moves the plot. What we're left with is a string of unanswered questions that don't make any sense. We're given aliens with unlimited omnipotent powers, yet they forget to use them at critical moments and get themselves killed. We're given a hero who can "tune" into these same powers, yet he only uses them when it's convenient to the plot. We're given a whole long list of loose ends that go nowhere Usually, critics will say that an actor playing an underwritten part "isn't given much to do." In this movie, no one is given anything to do. Sewell is given the impossible role of a man who doesn't remember anything, and plays it like... um... a man who doesn't remember anything. The aliens are tall, pasty-faced, and bald, and wear long black cloaks and fedoras to remind us that they're evil -- and there's a child alien as well, straight out of an Anne Rice novel. Sutherland is saddled with a limp, a twitchy eye, and a breathy accent to remind us that he's in league with the aliens. To its credit, Dark City boasts two impressive bits of casting. William Hurt is perfectly cast as the world-weary inspector charged with catching the man who is murdering prostitutes all over the city. Jennifer Connelly, playing Sewell's love interest, is given two all-too-brief moments on screen as a lounge singer -- and turns in the sexiest performace this side of Jessica Rabbit. But instead of the dogged policeman and the femme fatale given central treatment in the script (the way they would be in any self-respecting noir movie) they're almost tangiential to the plot, such as it is. The problem with Dark City is this: it's a bad science fiction movie pretending to be film noir. The essence of film noir isn't, as Proyas seems to beleive, breathy dialogue or snap-brim fedoras or tall, bald evil villains who would make Peter Lorre curl up in a corner. Dark City has not one bit of intrigue, moral ambiguity, suspense, or anything else that keeps us coming back to the noir classics. Dark City is like the intricately carved door that Kate Winslet floats on in Titanic. It's an exceptionlly well-made and intricately designed piece of flotsam, sailing around and around the middle of the ocean, going nowhere. Rating: C- -- Curtis "BlueDuck" Edmonds blueduck@hsbr.org The Hollywood Stock Brokerage and Resource http://www.hsbr.org/brokers/blueduck/ From rec.arts.sf.reviews Fri Apr 3 21:38:46 1998 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed1.news.luth.se!luth.se!sunqbc.risq.qc.ca!news-peer-east.sprintlink.net!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!worldnet.att.net!news.u.washington.edu!grahams From: leeper@mtgbcs.mt.lucent.com (Mark R Leeper) Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: Dark City (1998) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.movies Date: 9 Mar 1998 05:17:46 GMT Organization: None Lines: 86 Approved: graham@ee.washington.edu Message-ID: <6dvu1q$s9r$1@nntp5.u.washington.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: homer03.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp5.u.washington.edu 889420666 28987 (None) 140.142.64.4 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: grahams Summary: r.a.m.r. #11406 Keywords: author=leeper X-Questions-to: movie-rev-mod@www.ee.washington.edu X-Submissions-to: movie-reviews@www.ee.washington.edu Originator: grahams@homer03.u.washington.edu Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:10581 rec.arts.sf.reviews:1803 DARK CITY A film review by Mark R. Leeper Capsule: This film is an incredible visual experience and a story unusually dense in ideas. Still, I defy anybody to see it only once and still recall the full arc of the story 24 hours later. The style is much closer to Japanese anime or comic book than it is to film. Characters are little more than flat paper stand-ups, but the visual aspects of this cinema comic book are a real knockout. This is a film that goes in for quantity of ideas though not necessarily quality. You will not see too many American films that are a lot like DARK CITY. Rating: 7 (0 to 10), +2 (-4 to +4) It was a dark and ominous night. The city was a dangerous place that had no pity for the weak. An alien race "older than time" but now on the brink of dying out had came to the city to observe humans hoping to learn something that would enable them to save themselves. John Murdoch awoke in a bathtub to find he had no memories and there was a murdered woman nearby with mystical symbols carved into her body. Somewhere a clock was striking midnight. The images and the ideas come and go almost that fast in DARK CITY. This is a film that owes its style not so much to other films but to European New Wave comic books. A new idea or a piece of visual excitement flashes by the viewer at a rate of about two a minute. This is certainly an impressive style of film-making but it does carry with it a risk. In a story in which anything can happen at any time it is hard to care what is happening at any moment. DARK CITY will never be remembered as a thumping good story, but the film has other rewards. Stylistically the film is a lot like CITY OF LOST CHILDREN or BRAZIL, but without the sympathetic characters of those films. So the dynamic of the film is not to make the viewer feel much empathy for the characters but just to wonder what will happen next, what will it mean, and what will it look like. In fact, the city itself is the most engaging and certainly the most dynamic character of the film. The city looks like something out of the 30s and it is invested with aliens, human-looking but pale and hairless dressed in black bowlers and black fur-collared coats like the aristocratic gangsters in Fritz Lang's M. Alex Proyas wrote the story, co-wrote the screenplay, and directs. His CROW was a nimble translation of comic book style to the wide screen. DARK CITY goes much further in his stylistic experiments. In rapid flashes his story piles idea on idea without stopping longer than a quick muse to think about the implication. The viewer and the characters is doused in a shower of plot complications and new ideas with little time to consider them. As one complains "I have a jigsaw puzzle in front of me and each time I rearrange the pieces it still doesn't make any sense." But as with THE BIG SLEEP, what is most important is not the understanding of the plot but in the going along for the ride. This is a study in mood and texture and a very different sort of science fiction film from STARSHIP TROOPERS. But visually the film is often stunning. The city has a film noir-ish feel that fully reflects the title. Rufus Sewell of COLD COMFORT FARM and DANGEROUS BEAUTY does not get much chance to register much emotion besides bewilderment. He becomes a sort of place-holder and a cipher in more ways than one. Keifer Sutherland is a terrific half-mad scientist who might have been at home in DR. X. Jennifer Connelly is terrific in the scenes as a torch singer, but registers the same lack of depth as Sewell otherwise. William Hurt is a Bogart-like police inspector with nearly the same style. Rounding out the cast are the always enjoyable Richard O'Brien and Ian Richardson as white-faced aliens. This is a film with the texture of nightmare. It does not pay off in ways that most films do so it will appeal only to a narrow audience. But for what it is it is very nicely realized. It certainly is one of the most enjoyable surprises of the new year. I rate it a 7 on the 0 to 10 scale and a +2 on the -4 to +4 scale. I wonder if I am the only viewer to see strong parallels between this film and Harlan Ellison's OUTER LIMITS episode "The Demon with a Glass Hand." (I rather suspect that Ellison will. But then he managed to convince a jury that TERMINATOR borrowed from his "Soldier from Tomorrow" story rather than the more obvious choice of the science fiction film CYBORG 2087.) Mark R. Leeper mleeper@lucent.com Copyright 1998 Mark R. Leeper From rec.arts.sf.reviews Fri Apr 3 21:38:58 1998 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed1.news.luth.se!luth.se!fu-berlin.de!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!worldnet.att.net!news.u.washington.edu!grahams From: wchamber@netcom.ca (Bill Chambers) Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: Dark City (1998) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.movies Date: 13 Mar 1998 05:26:55 GMT Organization: NETCOM Canada Lines: 87 Approved: graham@ee.washington.edu Message-ID: <6eag2v$6k3$1@nntp5.u.washington.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: homer05.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp5.u.washington.edu 889766815 6787 (None) 140.142.64.4 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: grahams Summary: r.a.m.r. #11482 Keywords: author=chambers X-Questions-to: movie-rev-mod@www.ee.washington.edu X-Submissions-to: movie-reviews@www.ee.washington.edu Originator: grahams@homer05.u.washington.edu Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:10644 rec.arts.sf.reviews:1807 DARK CITY ** (out of four) -by Bill Chambers - wchamber@netcom.ca (For more purple prose check out FILM FREAK CENTRAL http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Set/7504 I now include a section where YOU the surfer can recommend movies to ME and other netheads. Have a freakin' good time.) starring Rufus Sewell, William Hurt, Kiefer Sutherland, Jennifer Connelly written by Lem Dobbs, David S. Goyer and Alex Proyas directed by Alex Proyas This review is more like an open letter to Alex Proyas, and thus contains plot spoilers, which I urge you to indulge in if you haven't yet seen this film, so you may donate your admission to a more charitable cause. It has to be said right away. Dark City is a deeply ironic film for the following reason: this is a movie about the search for the human soul, and yet it is entertainment entirely devoid of feeling. The Crow's Proyas is so fussy about the look of his film that not even three writers could save it from becoming an expensive-looking CD-ROM adventure, replete with B-grade actors (Hurt excepted) and an unsatisfactory conclusion. Sewell stars as John, a man who wakes up one evening in a hotel bathtub with a dead prostitute just outside the door. He can't remember anything, and the Peter Lorre- impersonating doctor (Sutherland) who phones him tells him only to flee the building, for "The Strangers" are after him. In long, black trenchcoats and wide-brimmed hats, The Strangers, a dying alien race in search of the secrets of the human soul (they believe it may be the key to a prolonged existence), pursue John through the streets of the dark metropolis. It seems he poses a threat, for he can "tune"; like The Strangers, John can stare at an object and have it morph into something else, which poses a serious threat to them, though I must admit even after 11 days of considering the story, I'm not sure why this is. The gorgeous Connelly is stuck in a thankless role as a sultry jazz club singer for that dash of retro, and Hurt is the detective on the non-case. Proyas refuses to tackle certain issues. For instance, Connelly sings melancholy tunes nightly, and Hurt plays his accordian by the light of the street every evening after work. Instead of exploring the unifying power of music as perhaps a key to the human soul, once the plot kicks in Connelly and Hurt ditch their pastimes and we realize it was all just filler, pretty moments in a movie made up entirely of either neat or pretty moments that don't gel as a cohesive whole. And, like the recent The Fifth Element, the screenwriters take great pains here to establish their own logic that they then adhere to only when stuck in a corner. Why is it John "tunes" a door onto a cement wall to escape his enemies early on, but later in the film, when he discovers one of the plot's big revelations may lie behind a gigantic brick wall, he picks up a sledgehammer and starts smashing it apart? (Also, would he really have the energy to do so, since he's been up for days?) The Strangers have this identical "tuning" power, and yet some of them seem to forget about it at inappropriate times, and die as a result. Perhaps the silliest plot point has Sutherland fleeing to a giant pool whenever he wants to hide from The Strangers, for they are afraid of "moisture". Is this development dwelled upon at all after it is introduced? No. Not even when it could have made for a hell of a sequence: at one point, Sutherland, Hurt and Sewell find themselves in a canoe, boating upstream to a mysterious beach. The Strangers could have surrounded the boat, but they wouldn't have been able to attack John and company for their collective fear of the river. Likewise, John and company would not have been able to attack them, because they would have had to exit the boat to do so. This could have been a very tense moment, one I anticipated since they mapped it out for themselves, and yet, what happens? John and company exit the boat and proceed to destroy said wall. There are very few payoffs in this screenplay. For all its flaws, Dark City is a triumph of production design, and the CGI effects are impressive. Proyas also resists the urge to gum up the sound track with alternative tunes, dashing any studio hopes of a hit tie-in album. And I must cop to being intrigued for the first half of the film. Hurt is just fine in his role, and Sutherland has his moments, but, for the most part, the acting is weak across the board. Sewell is uncharismatic and we never get any real sense of jeopardy from his noteless performance. Throughout Dark City, I couldn't help but imagine one poor, lost Stranger, sitting in a darkened cinema, tuning Proyas's film into something stronger. -Bill Chambers; March, 1998 From rec.arts.sf.reviews Fri Apr 3 21:39:04 1998 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!newsfeed.sunet.se!news99.sunet.se!news01.sunet.se!194.22.194.4.MISMATCH!masternews.telia.net!news-feed.inet.tele.dk!bofh.vszbr.cz!howland.erols.net!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!worldnet.att.net!news.u.washington.edu!grahams From: me@alanine.ram.org (Ram Samudrala) Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: Dark City (1998) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.movies Date: 14 Mar 1998 05:37:02 GMT Organization: Movie ram-blings: http://www.ram.org/ramblings/movies.html Lines: 50 Approved: graham@ee.washington.edu Message-ID: <6ed51u$fgh$1@nntp5.u.washington.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: homer28.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp5.u.washington.edu 889853822 15889 (None) 140.142.64.6 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: grahams Summary: r.a.m.r. #11487 Keywords: author=samudrala X-Questions-to: movie-rev-mod@www.ee.washington.edu X-Submissions-to: movie-reviews@www.ee.washington.edu Originator: grahams@homer28.u.washington.edu Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:10654 rec.arts.sf.reviews:1809 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- DARK CITY A film review by Ram Samudrala ---------------------------------------------------------------------- /Dark City/ offers one of the most compelling explanations as to what happens when people are abducted by aliens. The story begins when John Murdoch (Rufus Sewell) awakens without any memory of his past, and is immediately forced to run from the police who want him in connection with the murder of six prostitutes. However, the police aren't the only ones who want him. A group of pale-faced long-overcoat wearing "Strangers" are also searching for him. The Strangers turn out to be a race of aliens possessing a collective consciousness (a la the Borg) who perform experiments on the humans they have captured in an attempt to understand, and eventually emulate, the human psyche. To this end, they plant memories into their captives and see how the humans respond to lives that they believe have lived all their lives, but are completely fictitious. Thanks to the resilience of the human species, Murdoch manages to evolve the ability to "tune", the same ability that enables the Strangers to change the environment to suit each new experiment. This makes him the only hope of salvation for the human prisoners and, consequently, the biggest threat to the Strangers, since like them, he too can make every thought become reality. The main reason to see this movie is for the stunning visuals, which complement the plot perfectly. The film is done in classic comic book style. It wouldn't have surprised me if words illustrating explosions and fights started appearing on the screen. Unlike many people, I wasn't too impressed by the visuals in /The Crow/ or even /The Fifth Element/, to cite a couple of recent examples. But /Dark City/ is a movie where the visuals went beyond my expectations. The morphing buildings themselves tell the tortured story of a collection of humans whose very identities are mutated and changed by the Strangers the same way the buildings are. The plot is nothing original---it culls ideas from Star Trek (in fact, a recent episode of /Star Trek: Voyager/ titled /The Killing Game/ had a similar theme), /The Twilight Zone/, and /The Outer Limits/. The acting is good, and in particular, Kiefer Sutherland is great as creepy doctor who adds an artistic touch to the Strangers' experiments. This is a movie worth watching on the big screen and I highly recommend it. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- email@urls || http://www.ram.org || http://www.twisted-helices.com/th Movie ram-blings: http://www.ram.org/ramblings/movies.html From rec.arts.sf.reviews Fri Apr 3 21:39:09 1998 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed1.news.luth.se!luth.se!newspeer.monmouth.com!news.idt.net!chippy.visi.com!news-out.visi.com!nntp.texas.net!nntp.giganews.com!news.giganews.com.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Steve Rhodes Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: Dark City (1998) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.movies Lines: 74 Approved: graham@ee.washington.edu Message-ID: <6d5l82$fem$1@nntp5.u.washington.edu> Reply-To: srhodes@ricochet.net X-Trace: nntp5.u.washington.edu 888559682 15830 (None) 140.142.64.4 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: grahams Summary: r.a.m.r. #11215 Keywords: author=rhodes X-Questions-to: movie-rev-mod@www.ee.washington.edu X-Submissions-to: movie-reviews@www.ee.washington.edu Originator: grahams@homer05.u.washington.edu Date: Thu, 19 Mar 1998 15:02:29 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 207.43.16.3 NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 19 Mar 1998 09:02:29 CST Organization: Charter Communications Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:10728 rec.arts.sf.reviews:1811 ______________________________________________________________________ DARK CITY A film review by Steve Rhodes Copyright 1998 Steve Rhodes RATING (0 TO ****): * 1/2 "First came darkness, then came the strangers," we are told in the opening to the macabre, science fiction thriller, DARK CITY, by the director of THE CROW. It seems "the strangers" have come from another world and, like Nazi doctors, have a series of diabolical experiments they are conducting on the local inhabitants' memories. In a cast with significant depth, Kiefer Sutherland plays Dr. Schreber, who has sold his soul to the strangers and is helping them carry out their tests on human guinea pigs. As the show's hero, John Murdoch, MRS. DALLOWAY's Rufus Sewell plays the only man who may be able to save humanity -- or at least the city. Or it is one and the same? Jennifer Connelly, last seen in the delightful but unappreciated INVENTING THE ABBOTTS, is John's wife, Emma. Or is she? You get the idea. Like an Escher print, the storyline twists into itself and out again, so that what is real and what isn't become intertwined. As the tough but, like the audience, confused Inspector Bumstead, William Hurt plays his usual character. There's a mass murderer afoot in the city, and Inspector Bumstead harbors certain suspicions about John. SPICE WORLD's Richard O'Brien is the stranger named Mr. Hand, and Ian Richardson is the leader of the strangers, Mr. Book. So what can be so bad about a film with this lineup? Editing. Let's stop and take a poll. How long do you like the camera to stay with one character before it switches to another? 20 seconds so that the actor has a chance to say something meaningful? 10 seconds so that we can keep a fast pace? How about a blistering 5? Nope, all of these are way too slow for DARK CITY's editor, Dov Hoenig. 1 and 2 second clips are the norm in this movie. I know because I timed them. (My watch and I got to know each other better as a way for me to relive my boredom.) The result of this excessive flitting is liable to be nausea and confusion among the audience, which is a shame since there is a clever story trying to get out. But with the strobe light effect of five dozen 1-2 second clips in a row, it is hard to pay attention to anything. The only real reasons for seeing the picture are the bleak production design by George Liddle and Patrick Tatopoulos and the grimy cinematography by Dariusz Wolski. For those of you who thought Tim Burton's vision of Gotham City in BATMAN was too bright and happy, you'll like the look of DARK CITY. (One of the oddities of this metropolis is that time goes from midnight to midnight with no noon or daylight in between, but the locals never notice. It's that loss of memory thing.) Liz Keogh's costumes for the strangers are memorable. Dressed in long black coats, wide brimmed black hats and big black gloves, their pancake make-up keeps them ever ready for Halloween. And shot at angles designed to make them look seven feet tall, they appear quite ominous. If the editing and the confusing direction have you ready to walk out in the first fifteen minutes, don't fight the urge. Yes, there are a couple of nice twists along the way and some good visuals, but most people can find many better things to do with their time. DARK CITY runs 1:43. It is rated R for violence, nudity and profanity and would be fine for most teenagers. . From rec.arts.sf.reviews Fri Apr 3 21:39:50 1998 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed1.news.luth.se!luth.se!Cabal.CESspool!bofh.vszbr.cz!howland.erols.net!woodstock.news.demon.net!demon!news-dc-1.sprintlink.net!news-east.sprintlink.net!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!worldnet.att.net!news.u.washington.edu!grahams From: "Jerry Bosch" Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: Dark City (1998) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.movies Date: 21 Mar 1998 05:58:21 GMT Organization: Design Groupe System Approved: graham@ee.washington.edu Message-ID: <6evktt$iq0$1@nntp5.u.washington.edu> Reply-To: "Jerry Bosch" NNTP-Posting-Host: homer29.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp5.u.washington.edu 890459901 19264 (None) 140.142.64.6 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: grahams Summary: r.a.m.r. #11575 Keywords: author=bosch X-Questions-to: movie-rev-mod@www.ee.washington.edu X-Submissions-to: movie-reviews@www.ee.washington.edu Originator: grahams@homer29.u.washington.edu Lines: 61 Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:10879 rec.arts.sf.reviews:1822 DARK CITY Bad, bad, bad. Am I talking to a dog? In a word, yes. Amnesia can be a curse or a blessing. To a guy who can't even remember who he is not, amnesia would be a bad thing, but to a movie audience, at times, it can be an unforgettable benediction. Dark City wants to be a serious movie. It wants to probe the mysteries of the soul by addressing the issues of identity and alternate realities through a novel and not uninteresting variation on the amnesia theme. But a cinematic style that aims for Kafkaesque obscurity and ambiguity succeeds only in projecting a comic book atmosphere due to the flatness of the characters and the sharp demarcation of the plot line. You know that the characters are confused, but you don't feel their pain. And should you feel confused about their confusion, not to worry, everything is explained via dialogue or voice over. But alas, the mysteries of the soul can not be plumbed in the absence of pathos. So we end up with a moderately interesting premise that services the plot line without probing the thesis to any substantial depth. It seems that Alex Proyas (director) was unable to decide between the fractured logic of a dream-like state and his desire to clarify the situation. What the characters fail to show us they tell us in so many words; which seems like a commitment to logic, yet the premise is rife with logical inconsistencies. The busy metropolis has millions of inhabitants, yet the good bad doctor in charge of human experimentation shows no signs of having a staff. He seems to operate by himself in motel rooms. And why should the hero's brain mimic the powers of the Strangers, when he was not exposed to the substance of their minds? And why were those powers not used in a consistent manner? The water connection could have been used as a powerful symbol of the soul which, like water, will slip between your fingers when you try to grab it. However water does not play a major role in the defeat of the aliens. The victory weapon is not any element of the human soul, but elements indigenous to the aliens themselves, which is not particularly flattering to the human spirit. The final psycho-kinetic duel is a "been there; done that" experience which contributes nothing to the premise, and certainly does nothing to support a dualistic argument about the mind and the soul. Regarding William Hurt, the bank that holds his mortgage is glad to see him working again. Keifer Sutherland limps an affects a halting speech in the finest tradition of high school melodrama. Rufus Sewell and Jennifer Connelly turn in workman-like performances. Dark City will be OK to watch at home when it comes to Blockbuster. Just make sure to gather many friends in order to justify the expense. As food for the mind, it is little more than psy-fi pizza. I have been known to doze off in Titanic and other worthy epics. This often happens when my allergic conjunctivitis meets a darkened room. In Dark City the house was dark, the screen was dark, the action was slow and my conjunctivae were eyelash deep in memories of pollen. Perhaps I missed the good parts. It would be nice if there were such a thing as conjunctival amnesia. 2 ¼ out of 5 stars. (The ¼ star is a concession to good intentions.) Jerry From rec.arts.sf.reviews Fri Apr 3 21:39:59 1998 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!solace!xinit!newsfeed5.telia.com!masternews.telia.net!news-feed.inet.tele.dk!bofh.vszbr.cz!howland.erols.net!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!worldnet.att.net!news.u.washington.edu!grahams From: "Christian MacInnis" Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: Dark City (1998) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.movies Date: 23 Mar 1998 01:47:39 GMT Organization: TotalNet Inc. Lines: 55 Approved: graham@ee.washington.edu Message-ID: <6f4evr$eep$1@nntp5.u.washington.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: homer26.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp5.u.washington.edu 890617659 14809 (None) 140.142.64.7 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: grahams Summary: r.a.m.r. #11640 Keywords: author=macinnes X-Questions-to: movie-rev-mod@www.ee.washington.edu X-Submissions-to: movie-reviews@www.ee.washington.edu Originator: grahams@homer26.u.washington.edu Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:10798 rec.arts.sf.reviews:1816 ___________ DARK CITY A Film By Alex Proyas Reviewed By Christian MacInnis Upon arriving at the theater during the opening credits, I took my seat and prepared myself for what appeared to be "Hellraiser meets The Crow". But as soon as Kiefer Sutherland began speaking the narrative monologue, describing "The Strangers" and their reasons for contacting human beings, I was hooked. There was something especially compelling about the nature of his voice. I knew from the start that I was going to witness the actions of his character rather than the actor attempting the character. Sutherland played the role as a true veteran. Upon the completion of his monologue, the camera arrives on Sutherland in such a fashion that you can only wonder how long Alex Proyas spent on cinematography. I would imagine, for a film of this caliber, that maximum hours of work were spent where they were needed the most. The film flowed beautifully. As I was being taken through the intricate regions of the "Dark City", a clever plot began to unravel, to the point where the last time I had seen such clever plot twists were in "The Usual Suspects". Not to mention a series of special effects that would make James Cameron literally turn green with envy. But if you're not exactly the biggest sci-fi fan, caveat emptor. Get ready for the atmostpheric darkness of "12 Monkeys" or "The Crow" without the boredom or depression. The concept of the plot is as mindstretching as "12 Monkeys" was, however, so be prepared and be sophisticated. And imagine a picture that finally does justice to the comic-book-gone-feature-film fad that Hollywood has recently become abusive of. DARK CITY simply puts "Spawn" to shame. In fact, during the climax of the film I couldn't help but feel the strong presence of an "Akira"-esque explosion throughout the general feeling of the movie. So my initial predictions were wrong. This film is anything but the meloncholy of "Hellraiser" parts one through five. I'm never one to base a film entirly on special effects, so know that when I give DARK CITY ****1/2 (out of *****) it's actually because the film contained all of the neccessary ingredients to keep me entertained and awake from storyline to plot twists to camerawork to even (tsk, tsk) special effects. Not since Contact have I recieved such deep insight into the way the human mind operates and never this year have I been so blown away. The best film I've seen all year, and easily one of the best I've ever seen Christian MacInnis Review ©1998 Christian L. MacInnis From rec.arts.sf.reviews Fri Apr 3 21:40:04 1998 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed1.news.luth.se!luth.se!fu-berlin.de!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!worldnet.att.net!news.u.washington.edu!grahams From: Kevin Patterson Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: Dark City (1998) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.movies Date: 25 Mar 1998 06:38:24 GMT Organization: Princeton University Lines: 129 Approved: graham@ee.washington.edu Message-ID: <6fa8p0$dt6$1@nntp5.u.washington.edu> Reply-To: kevinp@princeton.edu NNTP-Posting-Host: homer06.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp5.u.washington.edu 890807904 14246 (None) 140.142.64.6 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: grahams Summary: r.a.m.r. #11675 Keywords: author=patterson X-Questions-to: movie-rev-mod@www.ee.washington.edu X-Submissions-to: movie-reviews@www.ee.washington.edu Originator: grahams@homer06.u.washington.edu Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:10827 rec.arts.sf.reviews:1818 Film review by Kevin Patterson DARK CITY Rating: *** (out of four) R, 1998 Directed by Alex Proyas. Written by Proyas, Lem Dobbs, and David S. Goyer. Starring Rufus Sewell, Kiefer Sutherland, Jennifer Connelly, William Hurt. DARK CITY certainly boasts one of the more interesting premises of any recent science fiction movie: a race of powerful aliens, in an attempt to discover what constitutes the human soul, abduct a group of people and take them to an artificially constructed "city." Every time it turns midnight, they are all put to "sleep" while their memories are extracted, mixed, and redistributed; meanwhile, the city itself is redone completely as entire buildings appear and disappear through the aliens' "tuning," the term they use for their manipulations of physical reality. They wake up in new places with new memories and personal histories. Assisting them in these experiments is Dr. Schreber (Kiefer Sutherland), a human scientist who helps the aliens as they search for any indication that someone's individual essence might withstand the constant brain-scrambling. As DARK CITY begins, we learn that something has just gone wrong with the aliens' experiment. John Murdoch (Rufus Sewell) has had his memory wiped as expected, but the implantation of new memories seems to have failed. He is left with no identity and, more importantly, no idea what he's doing in a hotel room with the bloody corpse of a dead prostitute. Before long, both the "police" that the aliens have brought to the city as well as the aliens themselves are after him as he tries to figure out who he is and whether or not he is responsible for the woman's murder. Along the way, the aliens discover that he is able to "tune" in the same way that they can and begin to think that he may be the answer to their questions about human individuality. It's an idea that occurs to the audience as well, as Murdoch does seem to retain a certain high moral character despite the memory loss; as the sympathetic Police Inspector Bumstead (William Hurt) notes, he doesn't seem like a murderer, whatever the evidence against him. Writer/director Proyas does a wonderful job in creating the experimental city: it is a place filled with towering skyscrapers, dark alleys, and ugly yellow and neon-green interiors. The sun never rises (literally, since the aliens can't stand the light), leaving everyone trapped in what seems like perpetual and unabated gloom. It is perhaps fortunate for the human subjects that the aliens reset everyone's memory after a day; I have no doubt that I would lose my mind after consciously spending more than about a week in this place. This nightmarish atmosphere is perfectly suited to the story, immersing the audience in the same sense of paranoia that Murdoch feels as he tries to convince himself of his own innocence and seeks the sympathy of his supposed wife (Jennifer Connelly) and Bumstead. Proyas adds plenty of clever touches to add to Murdoch's frustration as he looks for answers. At one point, for example, he asks someone what train will take him out of the city, to which the person responds, "You want the express." He waits for the express, only to see it fly past him without stopping; when he asks another bystander why it didn't stop, the man casually explains, "That's the express." Unfortunately, DARK CITY is weakened by a rushed and incomplete ending that ignores a major plot element (and in a way that lends itself to truly eerie implications - see below for spoilers) as Proyas, like any sensible Hollywood director, decides that since he's put together these impressive sets and visual designs, he might as well blow them up before he's finished. In the process, he leaves us with quite a few lingering questions. Do *all* humans have a "soul" to speak of, or just Murdoch (since he can "tune") and the other few who are able to resist the aliens? Why are the aliens so sloppy with their experiment as to leave everyone with only vague and confused understandings of their present situation - didn't they realize people would get antsy when they couldn't even figure out how to leave the city? Why do all of them have names like "Mr. Hand", "Mr. Book", and "Mr. Quick"? Why did they design the city like something out of a 1940s noir film? And if they're advanced enough to manipulate physical reality, couldn't they have found some way around their intolerance of light and thus avoided another dead giveaway for anyone who got suspicious? The answer for some of these questions, of course, is probably that Proyas shares the fascination of several of his contemporaries, such as Tim Burton, with this Gothic comic-book atmosphere and visual design. (If that's the case, however, he could have taken lessons from Burton, who in the BATMAN films managed to create unease and dread even in broad daylight, and solved at least one of his plot holes.) That's not to say that these dark, gloomy images are wasted: they come through with a definite visceral power that puts DARK CITY only one shelf below Terry Gilliam's BRAZIL and David Lynch's LOST HIGHWAY in the library of Psychologically Disturbing Films. But unlike those films, which rested on a subjective, mind's-eye viewpoint, DARK CITY seems to have underlying explanations which, while they may be science fiction, fit into the framework of linear narrative. Once Proyas has chosen this expository technique, the narrative demands that he follow through on it completely, and he doesn't. Proyas seems to have quite a gift for haunting, atmospheric filmmaking; the visual design and direction in DARK CITY are second to none. Perhaps once he finds a top-notch screenplay, he will join the ranks of Burton, Gilliam, and others as a first-rate fantasy filmmaker. Until then, DARK CITY still holds its own as a refreshingly bizarre and original film that is sure to please fans of science fiction or of psychological thrillers. - - - -SPOILER WARNING (Do not read further unless you want the ending and other plot points revealed)- - - - Perhaps the biggest problem with DARK CITY is the final sequence in which Murdoch has gained control over the aliens' technology and uses it to re-"tune" the city so that now there is daylight, people can leave the city and go to the beach, etc. Isn't he even going to *try* to pilot the city, which has turned out to be a spaceship, back to Earth? What about recovering everyone's original memory? Schreber apparently couldn't do this, but presumably the aliens kept records of who everyone was before all this started, or else they flunked high school lab science on their home planet. It would have been fine for the screenplay to address these questions at the end but not answer them, but instead it ignores them altogether. Moreover, is this really a "happy" ending, as its upbeat tone seems to suggest? If it is, it potentially subverts whatever message the film was trying to convey. No one else but Murdoch seems to know what's happened. Is everything OK simply because the mutable city is now in the hands of a supposedly more benevolent overlord, i.e. Murdoch? Seems to me like we're right back where we started - a group of alien abductees is trapped in an artificial reality controlled by a powerful being with the ability to "tune" reality. Now, I don't really think this was Proyas's intention, but he should have been more careful. - - - - - - Visit my Film Reviews page: http://members.aol.com/KTPattersn/reviews.html From rec.arts.sf.reviews Fri Apr 3 21:40:08 1998 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed1.news.luth.se!luth.se!news.algonet.se!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!Sprint!worldnet.att.net!news.u.washington.edu!grahams From: mmapes@indra.com (Marty Mapes) Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: Dark City (1998) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.movies Date: 2 Apr 1998 05:09:38 GMT Organization: None Lines: 68 Approved: graham@ee.washington.edu Message-ID: <6fv6ii$4l3$1@nntp5.u.washington.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: homer38.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp5.u.washington.edu 891493778 4771 (None) 140.142.64.7 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: grahams Summary: r.a.m.r. #11798 Keywords: author=mapes X-Questions-to: movie-rev-mod@www.ee.washington.edu X-Submissions-to: movie-reviews@www.ee.washington.edu Originator: grahams@homer38.u.washington.edu Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:10916 rec.arts.sf.reviews:1826 Dark City A film review by Marty Mapes Copyright 1998 Marty Mapes ***1/2 (out of 4) There seem to be two reactions to DARK CITY. You either love it or you are unimpressed. Count me as a "love it." As good as THE CROW and SPAWN are, DARK CITY is better. Where the former two have a specific comic-book following, the latter is an original work with the potential for broader appeal. It has a similar look to the others, but DARK CITY is much more thoughtful and much less violent. Not clever or complex, the story is still fascinating, like a selection from the Twilight Zone. A man (Rufus Sewell) is awakened in his bathtub by a man with a syringe. Surprised, the attacker runs off. The dazed man gets out of the tub and finds a woman's body in the room. A mysterious caller warns him to leave the apartment immediately, so he packs some clothes and leaves, never sure why he's leaving or what he's fleeing. Ghoulish figures in long coats recognize the man and chase him through the dark city, hounding him like figures in a nightmare. An odd blast of willpower allows the man to dream himself free from his pursuers long enough to check his I.D. The amnesiac learns that he is not dreaming and that his name is John Murdoch. Now if only he could remember the rest of his life.... DARK CITY is good on many levels. First, the look of the movie is excellent. Give credit to production designers George Liddle and Patrick Tatopolous for creating a coherent look from diverse elements. There are visual elements from the American 1920s-60s, mixed with Dickens-era urban industrial elements. It is all pulled together in a sad, dark look reminiscent of the diner in Edward Hopper's painting, NIGHTHAWKS. Proyas' use of models gives an appropriately eerie unreality to the film's world (for not only does the AUDIENCE see the city a model, but so do the ghouls). The look is like a cross between Tim Burton's BATMAN and the bleak animation of the Brothers Quay. Second, the editing of the film is good. The pacing is on track, and the plot is revealed, the "amnesia" explained, in satisfying increments. Also, the stylized editing WITHIN each scene gives the movie a tense, caffeinated look. Third, the special effects are well used. They look good, but more importantly, the right effects are used for the right job. One example stands out in my mind: the coated figures who haunt the city can attack telekinetically. A simple ripple effect is used. A more showy effect could have been chosen, but then it would have just been gratuitous. Restraint was shown where necessary, letting the more critical effects look more impressive. Finally, like GATTACA, DARK CITY spends a just a little effort striving for mythical significance. Unlike GATTACA, the story is just open-ended and non-literal enough to be successful. John Murdoch's recovery from amnesia is tied to the passing of the night, and the hopeful coming of the dawn. His struggle with amnesia is both figuratively and literally the struggle of all mankind (at least in his world). When we finally see the big picture of the movie's world, it is as mysterious as the Iroquois image of the world being carried on the back of a giant turtle. A few minor flaws keep me from giving this movie the same perfect score Roger Ebert gave, but I do strongly recommend it, for its look, its pace, its story, and its timelessness. Check out more current movie reviews at http://www.indra.com/~mmapes/ From rec.arts.sf.reviews Mon Apr 20 16:12:30 1998 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!newsfeed.sunet.se!news99.sunet.se!news01.sunet.se!fci-se!fci!news-feed.inet.tele.dk!bofh.vszbr.cz!howland.erols.net!wnfeed!204.127.130.5!worldnet.att.net!news.u.washington.edu!grahams From: Jason Overbeck Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: Dark City (1998) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.movies Date: 18 Apr 1998 16:26:44 GMT Organization: AT&T WorldNet Services Lines: 32 Approved: graham@ee.washington.edu Message-ID: <6hak84$ie2$1@nntp5.u.washington.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: homer28.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp5.u.washington.edu 892916804 18882 (None) 140.142.64.6 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: grahams Summary: r.a.m.r. #12071 Keywords: author=overbeck X-Questions-to: movie-rev-mod@www.ee.washington.edu X-Submissions-to: movie-reviews@www.ee.washington.edu Originator: grahams@homer28.u.washington.edu Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:11138 rec.arts.sf.reviews:1866 DARK CITY **** of **** grade is A- I always react more to films which contain endless imagination and thought. A movie like Dark City, that roars by you with images you have never seen or dreamt, like experiences David Lynches paintings. People call this a comic book movie but that is nly part true. This film is detailed and enigmatic enough to make a great comic book but few comic artists have as much energy as is shown in this film, one of the years best. A man wakes up finds a dead prostitute and soon discovers the dark side of the world. He encounters the Strangers a bread of aliens (I suppose) who live under the surface of everyday life and conduct experiments on humans whiule they cause us to sleep. The Strangers will always be remembered as a true horrific detail, almost like extras from a Marilyn Manson concert. The are tall, looming figures who wear all black and have dead, pale skin hugging their bones. It seems that movie dreams are never like dreams that real humans might have, but those Strangers are creepy, and look as though they walked out of my nightmares and onto thbig screen. I have neglected much of the movie other than the look and that is a shame. We get good work from William Hurt, Rufus Sewel and Keifer Sutherland. The plot is also genious with ticks of sci-fi, film noir, and horror. The end scenes ae masterpieces in there own right. When we finally see what we inhabit, something comes over us, allowing us to question theworld that we know and the peoples words we take on it. It may sound like I'm nuts, and I am - about this film. Great work from the director of the under-rated THE CROW Alex Prowles. From rec.arts.sf.reviews Mon Apr 27 15:52:24 1998 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed1.news.luth.se!luth.se!Cabal.CESspool!news-feed.inet.tele.dk!bofh.vszbr.cz!howland.erols.net!feed2.news.erols.com!erols!wnfeed!204.127.130.5!worldnet.att.net!news.u.washington.edu!grahams From: E. Benjamin Kelsey Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: Dark City (1998) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.movies Date: 17 Apr 1998 00:02:08 GMT Organization: None Lines: 78 Approved: graham@ee.washington.edu Message-ID: <6h6660$rlb$1@nntp5.u.washington.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: homer04.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp5.u.washington.edu 892771328 28331 (None) 140.142.64.4 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: grahams Summary: r.a.m.r. #12008 Keywords: author=kelsey X-Questions-to: movie-rev-mod@www.ee.washington.edu X-Submissions-to: movie-reviews@www.ee.washington.edu Originator: grahams@homer04.u.washington.edu Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:11155 rec.arts.sf.reviews:1867 DARK CITY (R) Directed by Alex Proyas Running Time: 103 minutes Originally Released: February 27, 1998 Reviewed by E. Benjamin Kelsey * * (out of four) There are movies that are carried completely on the weight of character development and interaction (WHAT'S EATING GILBERT GRAPE?), and there are movies completely carried by brilliant special effects (INDEPENDENCE DAY). When the two actually collide (CONTACT), it is a rare masterpiece. DARK CITY is a visual movie with a very intriguing idea - unfortunately this city is so dark, the idea can't see where it's going. Imagine waking up one day, your memory altogether erased and a dead prostitute in your room. Like a Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde story, DARK CITY begins with such a premise as John Murdoch (Rufus Sewell) awakens in a dingy bathtub with no recollection of how he got there. Although John can not remember his own identity, there are several people who do seem to know he is. For one, there is the police, in particular, Inspector Frank Bumstead (William Hurt) who oversees the case of mysterious murders for which John is the main suspect. Secondly, there is John's wife, Emma (Jennifer Connelly), a lounge singer who's affair supposedly drove John away. Thirdly, there is the mad scientist like Dr. Daniel Poe Schreber (Kiefer Sutherland), a man whose intentions are as ambiguous as the time of day (which in "Dark City" is *very* uncertain). Last but not least, we have a group of bald stark-white guys in black attire known by names such as Mr. Hand, Mr. Sleep, Mr. Quick, Mr. Wall, etc. Note: even though they're all bald, there isn't a Mr. Clean. As things very tediously slowly unravel, we discover that these "men", simply known as "strangers", have been putting the entire world to sleep every time the clock strikes midnight. They then proceed to use supernatural powers they refer to as "tuning" to reshape the city. By joint concentration, the group of non-human beings are able to construct elaborate apartment buildings in a matter of seconds, but when everyone awakes from their frozen state, nobody seems to notice the world around them has transformed into a new, seemingly unrecognizable environment. John becomes the exception to the rule, never falling under the sleeping spell and fully aware that the city is anything but natural. He also has the ability to tune, something he isn't fully aware of but something the "strangers" find very threatening to their ascendancy. With everyone seemingly against him, John finds himself on the run from a darkly transcendental and claustrophobic realm. Discovering this fact alone takes way too much time. For a very long while, the audience is left completely in the dark (pun intended) about any sort of plot. We follow John around the city, watching bizarre occurrences take place around him as though they were common everyday circumstances. However, this is true in Dark City, where everybody's heard of Shell Beach but nobody knows how to get there, and the sun is in everybody's memories but hauntingly never present in present time. It sounds highly intriguing, and had the audience been introduced to the "why" questions without dallying so long on the "what" questions, DARK CITY could've made for a richly absorbent piece of gothic- psychological thriller-sci-fi. Had director / co-writer Alex Proyas bothered to delve as deep into John's psychosis as he did the futuristically macabre imagery, the result would've been an intense and innovative mind trip. Sadly, without character development or the slightest attempt to lure the audience in (instead of just confusing us endlessly), such a grand project was never realized. Hurt's not looking up this year with such dreary performances in this and LOST IN SPACE, but at least here his heavily subdued toning blends right in. Sewell and Connelly are also inordinately ordinary, and Sutherland's Igor impression is highly laughable, though never intentionally so. In the drab settings, a lesser ebullience can be expected, but when performances become lethargic, it is very hard to remain interested. Proyas, whose THE CROW has developed somewhat of a cult following, is trying to be too artistically trippy, and there seems to be a lost, deep meaning about humanity that wants to come thru but never does surface. Any attempts at "real" substance fail embarrassingly. With so much potential packed into such a misguided film, one must give DARK CITY two stars for effort, but a big thumbs down on the recommendation level. April 09, 1998 From rec.arts.sf.reviews Mon Apr 27 15:53:53 1998 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lejonet.se!linkoping.trab.se!malmo.trab.se!feed1.news.luth.se!luth.se!cam-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!howland.erols.net!wnfeed!204.127.130.5!worldnet.att.net!news.u.washington.edu!grahams From: Jason Overbeck Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: Dark City (1998) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.movies Date: 18 Apr 1998 16:26:44 GMT Organization: AT&T WorldNet Services Lines: 32 Approved: graham@ee.washington.edu Message-ID: <6hak84$ie2$1@nntp5.u.washington.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: homer28.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp5.u.washington.edu 892916804 18882 (None) 140.142.64.6 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: grahams Summary: r.a.m.r. #12071 Keywords: author=overbeck X-Questions-to: movie-rev-mod@www.ee.washington.edu X-Submissions-to: movie-reviews@www.ee.washington.edu Originator: grahams@homer28.u.washington.edu Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:11249 rec.arts.sf.reviews:1879 DARK CITY **** of **** grade is A- I always react more to films which contain endless imagination and thought. A movie like Dark City, that roars by you with images you have never seen or dreamt, like experiences David Lynches paintings. People call this a comic book movie but that is nly part true. This film is detailed and enigmatic enough to make a great comic book but few comic artists have as much energy as is shown in this film, one of the years best. A man wakes up finds a dead prostitute and soon discovers the dark side of the world. He encounters the Strangers a bread of aliens (I suppose) who live under the surface of everyday life and conduct experiments on humans whiule they cause us to sleep. The Strangers will always be remembered as a true horrific detail, almost like extras from a Marilyn Manson concert. The are tall, looming figures who wear all black and have dead, pale skin hugging their bones. It seems that movie dreams are never like dreams that real humans might have, but those Strangers are creepy, and look as though they walked out of my nightmares and onto thbig screen. I have neglected much of the movie other than the look and that is a shame. We get good work from William Hurt, Rufus Sewel and Keifer Sutherland. The plot is also genious with ticks of sci-fi, film noir, and horror. The end scenes ae masterpieces in there own right. When we finally see what we inhabit, something comes over us, allowing us to question theworld that we know and the peoples words we take on it. It may sound like I'm nuts, and I am - about this film. Great work from the director of the under-rated THE CROW Alex Prowles. From rec.arts.sf.reviews Mon May 4 15:03:14 1998 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed1.news.luth.se!luth.se!cam-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!worldnet.att.net!news.u.washington.edu!grahams From: "Berge Garabedian" Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: Dark City (1998) Followup-To: rec.arts.movies.current-films Date: 1 May 1998 05:05:58 GMT Organization: None Lines: 65 Approved: graham@ee.washington.edu Message-ID: <6ibl7m$ab4$1@nntp5.u.washington.edu> Reply-To: NNTP-Posting-Host: homer08.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp5.u.washington.edu 893999158 10596 (None) 140.142.64.6 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: grahams Summary: r.a.m.r. #12269 Keywords: author=garabedian X-Questions-to: movie-rev-mod@www.ee.washington.edu X-Submissions-to: movie-reviews@www.ee.washington.edu Originator: grahams@homer08.u.washington.edu Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:11376 rec.arts.sf.reviews:1886 DARK CITY RATING: 8 / 10 --> Great movie Review Date: March 29, 1998 Director: Alex Proyas Writers: Alex Proyas, Lem Dobbs & David S. Goyer Producers: Alex Proyas and Andrew Mason Actors: Rufus Sewell as John Murdoch Kiefer Sutherland as Dr. Daniel Schreber William Hurt as Inspector Frank Bumstead Jennifer Connelly as Emma Murdoch Richard O'Brien as Mr. Hand Genre: Science-Fiction Year of Release: 1998 Alex Proyas' visionary follow-up to his big hit from 1994, THE CROW (8.5/10), is a stunning success on all counts of movie-making magic. PLOT: Some eerie "people" named The Strangers living under a "dark city" attempt to identify the constitution of human beings in a futuristic setting. CRITIQUE: Grand vision. Out of this world special effects (not one bit of cheese either). Deep story line that allows us to ponder the ramifications of our childhood, memories, and future behaviour. This movie is set on a quick pace, and doesn't let up till the very end. It's a very original story, set to Mr. Proyas' unique style, and dark motif. I never thought I'd see a movie that was darker than the original Crow, but here it is, ladies and germs! Obviously, if "dark films" are not your cup o' tea, I suggest you skip this piece of blackness. This movie brought back images of BLADE RUNNER (7.5/10) and the original BATMAN (8/10) (before Joel Schumacher turned the series into a fantasy cartoon for him and his friends...) in regards to its grandeur and scale, and certainly will be remembered in the years to come as a cult classic. On the down side, Kiefer Sutherland's performance as the Doctor ran a little too close to a bad impression of the Hunchback of Notre-Dame, but I digress. The love story was also a bit weak, but then again, if you want to see a good love story, you wouldn't go see a film called DARK CITY in the first place, right? Overall, I must say that this film is one that I thoroughly enjoyed from frame one to frame last, and look very forward to watching it over and over again, with nachos by my side, and mind set to "absorb". Try to see this flick on the big screen, boys and girls, it will certainly make for a stronger impression. Until then, I'm off to find a poster of The Strangers to plaster all over my walls. Little Known Facts: Film was originally titled DARK EMPIRE and DARK WORLD. Director Proyas was apparently extremely distraught after the shooting of THE CROW (and more specifically, the accidental shooting of his young star, Brandon Lee) and took several years to recover. I would venture to compare the meaning behind this film with the thoughts that Mr. Proyas experienced for his ill-fated star. Visit JoBlo's Movie Reviews: http://www.microtec.net/~drsuess/ (c) 1998 Berge Garabedian From rec.arts.sf.reviews Tue May 26 14:48:57 1998 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed1.news.luth.se!luth.se!news-stkh.gip.net!news-peer.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!newshub.northeast.verio.net!nntp.giganews.com!news.giganews.com.POSTED!not-for-mail From: mmapes@indra.com (Marty Mapes) Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: Dark City (1998) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.movies Organization: None Lines: 68 Approved: graham@ee.washington.edu Message-ID: <6fv6ii$4l3$1@nntp5.u.washington.edu> X-Trace: nntp5.u.washington.edu 891493778 4771 (None) 140.142.64.7 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: grahams Summary: r.a.m.r. #11798 Keywords: author=mapes X-Questions-to: movie-rev-mod@www.ee.washington.edu X-Submissions-to: movie-reviews@www.ee.washington.edu Originator: grahams@homer38.u.washington.edu Date: Fri, 15 May 1998 09:15:18 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 207.43.16.3 NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 15 May 1998 04:15:18 CDT Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:11669 rec.arts.sf.reviews:1912 Dark City A film review by Marty Mapes Copyright 1998 Marty Mapes ***1/2 (out of 4) There seem to be two reactions to DARK CITY. You either love it or you are unimpressed. Count me as a "love it." As good as THE CROW and SPAWN are, DARK CITY is better. Where the former two have a specific comic-book following, the latter is an original work with the potential for broader appeal. It has a similar look to the others, but DARK CITY is much more thoughtful and much less violent. Not clever or complex, the story is still fascinating, like a selection from the Twilight Zone. A man (Rufus Sewell) is awakened in his bathtub by a man with a syringe. Surprised, the attacker runs off. The dazed man gets out of the tub and finds a woman's body in the room. A mysterious caller warns him to leave the apartment immediately, so he packs some clothes and leaves, never sure why he's leaving or what he's fleeing. Ghoulish figures in long coats recognize the man and chase him through the dark city, hounding him like figures in a nightmare. An odd blast of willpower allows the man to dream himself free from his pursuers long enough to check his I.D. The amnesiac learns that he is not dreaming and that his name is John Murdoch. Now if only he could remember the rest of his life.... DARK CITY is good on many levels. First, the look of the movie is excellent. Give credit to production designers George Liddle and Patrick Tatopolous for creating a coherent look from diverse elements. There are visual elements from the American 1920s-60s, mixed with Dickens-era urban industrial elements. It is all pulled together in a sad, dark look reminiscent of the diner in Edward Hopper's painting, NIGHTHAWKS. Proyas' use of models gives an appropriately eerie unreality to the film's world (for not only does the AUDIENCE see the city a model, but so do the ghouls). The look is like a cross between Tim Burton's BATMAN and the bleak animation of the Brothers Quay. Second, the editing of the film is good. The pacing is on track, and the plot is revealed, the "amnesia" explained, in satisfying increments. Also, the stylized editing WITHIN each scene gives the movie a tense, caffeinated look. Third, the special effects are well used. They look good, but more importantly, the right effects are used for the right job. One example stands out in my mind: the coated figures who haunt the city can attack telekinetically. A simple ripple effect is used. A more showy effect could have been chosen, but then it would have just been gratuitous. Restraint was shown where necessary, letting the more critical effects look more impressive. Finally, like GATTACA, DARK CITY spends a just a little effort striving for mythical significance. Unlike GATTACA, the story is just open-ended and non-literal enough to be successful. John Murdoch's recovery from amnesia is tied to the passing of the night, and the hopeful coming of the dawn. His struggle with amnesia is both figuratively and literally the struggle of all mankind (at least in his world). When we finally see the big picture of the movie's world, it is as mysterious as the Iroquois image of the world being carried on the back of a giant turtle. A few minor flaws keep me from giving this movie the same perfect score Roger Ebert gave, but I do strongly recommend it, for its look, its pace, its story, and its timelessness. Check out more current movie reviews at http://www.indra.com/~mmapes/ . From rec.arts.sf.reviews Tue May 26 14:49:02 1998 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed1.news.luth.se!luth.se!fu-berlin.de!news-peer.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!wn3feed!worldnet.att.net!140.142.64.3!news.u.washington.edu!grahams From: "Chris T. Dias" Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: Dark City (1998) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.movies Date: 26 May 1998 04:08:07 GMT Organization: All USENET -- http://www.Supernews.com Lines: 173 Approved: graham@ee.washington.edu Message-ID: <6kdf77$crq$1@nntp5.u.washington.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: homer17.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp5.u.washington.edu 896155687 13178 (None) 140.142.64.6 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: grahams Summary: r.a.m.r. #12563 Keywords: author=dias X-Questions-to: movie-rev-mod@www.ee.washington.edu X-Submissions-to: movie-reviews@www.ee.washington.edu Originator: grahams@homer17.u.washington.edu Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:11730 rec.arts.sf.reviews:1915 DARK CITY STARRING: Rufus Sewell, William Hurt, Kiefer Sutherland, Jennifer Connelly, Richard O'Brien WRITTEN BY: Alex Proyas, Lem Dobbs and David S. Goyer DIRECTED BY: Alex Proyas. --PLOT-- Dark City is a great visionary achievement, a film so original and exciting, it stirred my imagination like no movie has in a long time. It opens with a narration by Dr. Schreber (Kiefer Sutherland) who tells of a dying race known only as The Strangers. They came down from a distant world to examine humanity. Their experiment and their subjects inhabit a city of rumbling elevated streamlined trains, dank flophouses, scurrying crowds and store windows. A city of night and shadows, but it goes far beyond "Batman" in a richness of ominous, stylized sets, streets, skylines and cityscapes. For once a movie city equals any we could picture in our minds. A true clash of futuristic style with a gothic metropolis thrown into the soup. This city can't exist in reality...unless it is not reality. Here, the sun never rises and midnight falls every 12 hours. When the clock strikes twelve, everyone sleeps, and the Strangers emerge. They run their experiment, change things, and sink back into the depths to observe. The people have no idea. They awake and continue their lives, oblivious...until something goes wrong. On occasion, a person awakes during this frozen time. They learn the truth that something bizarre occurs in this town, and they start asking questions. One such person is John Murdoch (Rufus Sewell) who awakens in a strange bathtub beneath a swinging ceiling lamp, to blood, fear and guilt. The telephone rings; it is Dr. Schreber (Kiefer Sutherland), gasping out two or three words at a time, as if the need to speak is all that gives him breath. He warns Murdoch to flee, and indeed three Strangers are in the corridor, coming for him. There is a dead girl at his feet. Did he commit this crime? If he is an evil man, why did he take a moment to save a dying fish? He flees. Without any knowledge of who he is, John wanders through the town, trying to piece together his past. He remembers the woman he loves, or loved--his wife, Emma (Jennifer Connelly), who is a torch singer with sad eyes and wounded lips. And he remembers ... Shell Beach? Where was that? He sees it on a billboard and old longings stir. On top of the billboard, he is attacked by a group Strangers. They are as confused as he is. Why isn't he sleeping like the rest? The answer shocks them all, he might be developing their power...the ability to "tune"-the art of altering matter at its basic level. This ability is revealed in its most shocking form when midnight strikes again and John witnesses the populace falling into comas. What is more shocking is how the town changes. Buildings grow and melt away. Rooms expand. A couple in the ghetto is dressed in nice clothes, the building mutates from a run down apartment block into a mansion. To finalize the picture, the couple and anyone related have their memories implanted by good doctor Shreber. John joins with his wife for the search for the truth. But more than the Stranger's pursue him. Lest we forget that Robert was found in a room with a dead girl. Apparently this could by his sixth victim. Is he a murderer or has he been set up? The investigator on the case is new to this precinct, Inspector Bumstead (William Hurt). He replaces his predecessor, who apparently, went mad. The Strangers have gotten nervous. To help hunt down Murdoch, one of their own, Mr. Hand (Richard O'Brien)-They all have names like that. Their leader is known as Mr. Book-has Murdoch's own memories implanted in him so he can think like the human subject. Murdoch's problem is that he has no way of knowing if his memories are real, if his past actually happened, if the women he loves ever existed. Those who offer to help him cannot be trusted. Even his enemies may not be real. The movie teasingly explores the question that babies first ask in peek-a-boo: When I can't see you, are you there? It's through that game that we learn the difference between ourselves and others. But what if we're not there, either? -- REVIEW -- Dark City is a glorious marriage of existential dread and slam-bang action. From the start, I got somewhat disillusioned from a couple less-than-spectacular model shots of the city. The movie seems loose in its first act. Only when certain questions are answered about setting, do we start to fully understand what is going on. Luckily, this happens almost immediately...but the story does not open itself up. In fact there were surprises I had no idea were coming until the very end. It seems that every year, a low budget sci-fi film comes out that sweeps the critics. Somehow, these low-budget flicks aren't seen by many people. They slip into obscurity...that is, until word of mouth gets out and it becomes a cult hit. Richard O'Brien should be aware of cult hits (those who know what I am talking about can smirk an little smirk and continue). Two years ago, it was The Arrival, a brilliant film by writer extrodinaire', David Twohy. It opened between Mission: Impossible and Twister and promptly got killed. Last year, it was Gattaca. Now, it is Dark City...too bad there is usually only one of these per year. Dark City came out too quickly. For one reason is the little boat movie that never sinks. Dark City is one of the most original science fiction films I have ever seen. Please note I use the word "film." This is the kind of fiction we see often in novels and comics. They always have a real sense of original energy that so many movies lack. In fact, upon looking back, there were many elements in this film I that I remembered in books like Ringworld, comics like Akira, and even the Final Fantasy computer game. However, Dark City plays above them all with a fantastic story. It never lays it out in your lap, but unlike some other films, it does make sense. So many movies are so confusing, you have to think about it for hours just put your mind at ease at the plot holes. Dark City makes you think but explains just enough that you understand what is happening. The single best part of this film is the ending...It has one. So many high budget films of the past year have no third act (see Men in Black and The Fifth Element). The energy of the last act is enough for two films. Everything comes together with a great irony and fantastic apocalyptic ballet that made me doubt the budget of this film. Alex Proyas is a stylistic director with a great imagination. I was glued at the visuals of this movie. The set designs are unbelievable (reminiscent of Terry Gilliam's Brazil) and the music was amazingly epic. The effects got better and better. The sequences in so many films can be switched with other films. Take the cable car chase from Metro, The Rock, and Heaven's Prisoners and juggle them around...you wouldn't tell them apart. Here, the sequences are very unique. In one amazing scene, the Stranger's are tuning the city. Buildings rise and fall. Towers assemble in seconds. Murdoch is pursued by flying strangers. After leaping across rooftops that move up and down, he finds himself trapped between two buildings which are colliding. He then runs through one, out a door, only discover the rest of the building hasn't been constructed yet. He hangs for dear life and saves himself by jumping on a chimney that rises up beside him. Just imagine it. Dark City is a film that begs repeat viewing because of the amount of intelligence it shows. There is so much to see and think about that I walked away constantly jabbering about its good points. Dark City is a great film and I plead to everyone to consider it as an alternative to the Titanic juggernaut. GREAT POINTS: SET DESIGN IMAGINATION STORY PLUSES: DIRECTION SPECIAL EFFECTS MINUSES: NONE WORST POINTS: NONE RATING: 5 stars out of 5. DEMOGRAPHIC: There is little language and little blood. We have nudity and some dead bodies. The one thing that will turn off younger viewers is the same complaint about LA Confidential (complaint?!). The story is not simple and most kids won't have the foggiest what is happening. Dark City is a movie of intelligence. Unless you have some, keep away. -- --- Chris T. Dias --- "The man who runs with scissors." From rec.arts.sf.reviews Mon Jun 8 13:25:26 1998 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed1.news.luth.se!luth.se!masternews.telia.net!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!news.bbnplanet.com!feed2.news.erols.com!erols!wn4feed!135.173.83.24!wn3feed!worldnet.att.net!140.142.64.3!news.u.washington.edu!grahams From: "David Wilcock" Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: Dark City (1998) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.movies Date: 6 Jun 1998 16:30:14 GMT Organization: None Lines: 70 Approved: graham@ee.washington.edu Message-ID: <6lbqqm$oql$1@nntp5.u.washington.edu> Reply-To: "David Wilcock" NNTP-Posting-Host: homer10.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp5.u.washington.edu 897150614 25429 (None) 140.142.64.2 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: grahams Summary: r.a.m.r. #12726 Keywords: author=wilcock X-Questions-to: movie-rev-mod@www.ee.washington.edu X-Submissions-to: movie-reviews@www.ee.washington.edu Originator: grahams@homer10.u.washington.edu Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:11906 rec.arts.sf.reviews:1926 DARK CITY (NEW LINE CINEMA) RUNNING TIME: 1 HOUR 40 MINUTES. STARRING RUFUS SEWELL, KIEFER SUTHERLAND, JENNIFER CONNELY AND WILLIAM HURT. DIRECTED BY ALEX PROYAS The director of The Crow (1994) returns with this happy epic, set in a world where the sun is always shining and everyone is cheerful. Only kidding. As you could guess by the title, Dark City is a dark, depressive, but somewhat entertaining picture. Set sometime in the future, the film begins when we see John Murdoch (Sewell) wake up with no memory. He can't remember his wife Emma (Connely) or the murders that he has been framed for. And when he encounters strange, tall people wearing silly hats trying to kill him (called 'The Strangers'), he tries to get answers. With the help of Dr. Scheriber (Sutherland) he tries to work out what the hell is going on. Hot on his tail on this time is world weary cop Inspector Frank Bumstead (Hurt.) Despite the dark setting, and the depressive mood the picture has, Dark City is entertaining. The first thing that makes the film fun is the cast. Director Alex Proyas has managed to assemble a pretty good cast for what is essentially a very silly sci-fi movie. Rufus Sewell does a good job looking confused, and also does the action scenes all right aswell. Sutherland appears to be having fun as the doctor, even if he is overacting just a little. His delivery of his lines really started to annoy me, though. (He pauses every two words.) More worringly, he's looking more like his father every day. Connelly fine in her role, although it dosen't require much. Her singing voice, by the way, is Anita Kelsey, so don't expect any Connelly hits in the chart's any time soon. William Hurt is not bad, even though he dosen't really appear to be trying. Also popping up is Ian Richardson and Richard O'Brian as two of The Strangers. Both are good english actors, and watching them dress up in the most stupid costumes, blurting out lines which a B movie screenwriter would be proud of is actually quite amusing (if you're British, that is.) Then again, O'Brien dressed up stupid in The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) so looking silly is no stranger to him. Like The Crow, the film is directed like a music video with a large budget. Proyas uses fast cuts, quick zooms and a dance soundtrack to great effect, as they manage (along with the acting) to drown out the poor dialogue (written by Lem Dobbs, David S. Goyer and Proyas himself.) The fast paced directing helps the movie bound along. The dialogue just slows it down. It's clumsy, stupid, and in the end, just boring. The best thing about Dark City, however, is the look of the film. The city is impressive, it's look the place The Crow (and Deckard from Bladerunner, 1982) would live. The special effects are also impressive, especially the ones in the overblown finale. Dark City is a definite case of style of content. If you get bored of the movie, just sit back and enjoy the great scenery, the great directing, and the soundtrack. This things alone probably make Dark City worth watching. It may not be the best film of the year, but Dark City is worth watching, and is ultimately just good fun. OVERALL RATING= *** OUT OF ***** REVIEW BY DAVID WILCOCK DAVID WILCOCK david.wilcock@btinternet.com Visit the Wilcock Movie Page! http://wilcockmovie.home.ml.org -OR- http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/9061 Recieve Wilcock Movie Page Reviews via E-MAIL Send a blank E-MAIL to wmp-reviews-subscribe@makelist.com to join the mailing list! From rec.arts.sf.reviews Thu Feb 10 12:24:27 2000 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed2.news.luth.se!luth.se!newspump.monmouth.com!newspeer.monmouth.com!logbridge.uoregon.edu!news.u.washington.edu!grahams From: "Alex Ioshpe" Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Retrospective: Dark City (1998) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.movies Date: 7 Feb 2000 04:12:53 GMT Organization: Telenor Online Public Access Lines: 76 Approved: graham@ee.washington.edu Message-ID: <87lgo5$i04g$1@nntp3.u.washington.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: homer26.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp3.u.washington.edu 949896773 589968 (None) 140.142.17.38 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: grahams Summary: r.a.m.r. #22990 Keywords: author=ioshpe X-Questions-to: movie-rev-mod@www.ee.washington.edu X-Submissions-to: movie-reviews@www.ee.washington.edu Originator: grahams@homer26.u.washington.edu Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:22179 rec.arts.sf.reviews:2595 An Alex Ioshpe Review WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY: Alex Proyas STARRING: Rufus Sewell, Kiefer Sutherland, Jennifer Connelly, Richard O'Brien, Ian Richardson & William Hurt RATING: 8/10 John Murdoch (Sewell) awakens alone in a strange hotel to find that he is wanted for a series of brutal murders. The problem is that he can't remember whether he committed the murders or not. In fact, most of his memories have completely vanished, and for one brief moment, he is convinced that he has gone stark raving mad. Pursued by Detective Bumstead (Hurt), Murdoch seeks to unravel the twisted riddle of his identity. As he edges closer to solving the mystery, he stumbles upon a fiendish underworld controlled by a group of ominous beings collectively known as The Strangers . These shadow-like, soulless creatures are on a quest to emulate humanity. They control Dark City, freezing time every night to rearrange the skyline and warp every resident's mind to find out what makes us "tick". These gothic figures possess the ability to alter people's perceptions, by changing their memories -- a process known as Tuning. Through an evolutionary anomaly, Murdoch is also imbued with this power and thus, he alone is able to resist The Stangers' control over his mind.. And for that, he must be destroyed. With the help of the inscrutable Doctor Schreber (Sutherland), Murdoch is able to stay a step ahead of his adversaries while he slowly pieces together the labyrinthine puzzle of his past -- his bittersweet childhood, his love for his estranged wife Emma (Connelly) and the key to a hideous series of murders which he is suspected of committing. Eternal night, strange skyscrapers that morph from the ground, while the unknowing citizens get their memories changed every 24 hours. This is a surreal, bizarre and effectively paranoid sci-fi thriller that will please the neo-noir fans. Unlike most of the films of its genre, "Dark City" does not have any action sequences or endless gunfights. It is more like a dark a nd moody meditation. What makes us human? What is individuality? Is it simply a collection of memories that make us what we are? Will a man that has got memories of a killer continue the horrifying practice? Or is it something deeper, something you can not change, take or label? Is that what we call soul? In a film like this, atmosphere is the key. Alex Proyas understands that. Directing with as little light as possible and using only the shades of gray, black and dark green, he manages to create a cold and unfriendly world, which is a bizarre mixture of countless time periods and ages - a world of eternal night, lit up only by the colorful memories. This world is more like a zoo - a laboratory where it is we who are being researched by a superior and far more advanced race. Visually the film is remarkable, presenting a graceful cinematography, gothic architecture, '50s costumes, interesting art direction and a dose of impressive special effects. The acting is also a key factor and it is nothing more than acceptable, although it is impossible to call any of the performances spectacular. Regrettably the characters in "Dark City" are not very developed and there are some disturbing holes in the plot, that some will find disturbing. After a spectacular and completely unexpected revelation that lifts the film to new hight, the finale that follows is rather disappointing, simplified and almost alienated from the rest of the picture. This film has received a rather cold welcome from the critics and was underrated and overseen for no reason. Several failures during these 100 minutes, prevent me from giving this film a top mark. However, this is truly a thrilling and inspiring production, that will probably stand as an example of a good science fiction film in the years that come. ____________________________________________________________________________ Written by Alex Ioshpe (C) 1998 (ioshpe@online.no)