Mood piece, not puzzle piece.

Rating: Null/10 (28 March 2003)

A "puzzle movie" satisfies the mind of the viewer who tries to figure out what is going on, and is all in how all the little things seen in it reinforce the eventual resolution. "Dark City" is not that kind of movie, since as soon as you start to logically consider what is going on it it things fail to make sense. It is a gloomy, gothic study in nightmare images that keeps a steady tone of unease and tension, but it does not have an intricate and coherent narrative. If you enjoy wonderfully creepy sets and art direction, a 50's noire-ish character, and sinister, "Kafkaesque" tones, you will like it. For me, the distractions started to mount up after a while, and I found it disappointing. Kieffer Sutherland gives an extremely mannered portrayal of the doctor, and the problems (see spoilers below) kept nagging at me. Entertaining if you don't think about it too much. Like a dream, it sometimes makes no sense, and there aren't answers to everything. Like ...
*** SPOILERS FOLLOW ***
Why do the bad guys try so hard to kill the protagonist when he is the entire reason for their experiments? How can they have so little knowledge of his whereabouts and activities during the story if they are supposed to be observing him? The cop has a gun, why don't they have guns? Why don't they all get sucked out into space when they (improbably) break a hole in the wall and see outer space? Why do we only see them shutting everything down at midnight--wouldn't there still be daylight hours that follow the tunings? If they can tune the whole environment, why do they not use this ability to overcome the hero when they are trying to detain him? If the Strangers are a group mind, they would not need to converse with each other the way they do. If they designed the machine that changes the environment based on their telepathic powers, why can't they control it as well as the hero, or at least prevent him from using it?