Subject: Review: Dark City (1998)

From: E. Benjamin Kelsey <[email-masked]>
Date: 17 Apr 1998 00:02:08 GMT

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