Dark City

Directors: Alex Proyas
Writters: Alex Proyas, Lem Dobbs, David S. Goyer
Starring: Rufus Sewell, William Hurt, Kiefer Sutherland, Jennifer Connelly, Richard O'Brien, Ian Richardson

John's Review

    Dark City, the newest film from Alex Proyas is for those who think Star Trek is too cheery to be called Science Fiction. Visually, it's stunning, an extension of the looming night world he put onscreen in ``The Crow'' - huge, dark, mostly empty streets with a vaguely retro look.
    It stars Sewell as a befuddled sufferer who wakes up in a hotel room remembering only that he somehow became separated from his wife and now is wanted for questioning in a series of gruesome
Jack-the-Ripper killings of prostitutes. A nightmare, basically. But scripters Proyas, Dobbs, and Goyer have a few moral speculations in their plot as well. And the other three main characters of any size at all, Hurt's homicide detective, Sutherland's doctor and Connely's wife, are at least as much for the confused protagonist as against him.
    Floating through the streets are a race of aliens called The Strangers. Elongated, cadaverous, spectral, and waxy-looking in their long black shroud-like coats, they suggest distant relatives of Max Schreck's vampire in ``Nosferatu.'' (You may even recognize Richard O'Brien as 'Riff Raff' from The Rocky Horror Picture Show) Using their collective will and personality, they ``tune'' the look of the world the hero inhabits, playing sinister mind games, morphing one cityscape into another, as Sewell's fugitive, reunited with his wife, frantically tries to figure out what exactly The Strangers are up to and how to stop them.
    Dark City is much like City of Lost Children with its similar army of evil clones living like bats in a cavernous gothic underworld, aggressively pursuing humans. The acting is fine, but we're not here to see acting. We are watching a game being played out with chess board pieces.Still, there's no denying the wild imagery, unlike anything seen in a movie theater for some years.

Grade: B-
 
 

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