Subject: Review: Dark City (1998)

From: Craig Roush <[email-masked]>
Date: 7 Mar 1998 17:41:34 GMT

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
[email-masked]
--
Kinnopio's Movie Reviews
http://www.execpc.com/~kinnopio