Not Neo Enough

Rating: 6/10 (13 July 2016)

Rufus Sewell plays John Murdoch in this grungy science fiction thriller which has the look of a 1940s Film Noir. Murdoch lives in a vast dark city which is no to dissimilar to Batman's Gotham City. Murdoch might also be a murderer but he really is not sure of his memories.
The city is overrun by the Strangers, a ghostly and bald alien race with special powers that live in human cadavers. They want to understand humanity. They are helped by a human scientist (Kiefer Sutherland) who extracts memories from people and injects them into other human bodies. Murdoch was given the mind of a serial killer but something went wrong.
Inspector Bumstead (William Hurt) is looking for a serial killer preying on prostitutes and Murdoch might be his man. Emma Murdoch (Jennifer Connelly) is the wife looking for her missing husband. However the Strangers want to get hold of Murdoch but he seem to be very resistant and could even expose the heart of this city where it never seems to get light.
The film came out a year before The Matrix but it is the latter film that hit the big box office jackpot. The Matrix had zeitgeist this has not. The film feels to derivative and lacks freshness. The interior setting in a place where it is always night just looks like a big movie sound stage not matter how dazzling the art direction which are inspired by Edward Hopper paintings and German Expressionist cinema.
Proyas does create wonderful visuals which are now without interest but they have now aged. The editing is too choppy because when the reveal arrives it is straightforward but the director made the film convoluted to keep the mystery going.