Dazzling darkness

Rating: Null/10 (4 June 2000)

* * * ½ (3½ out of 5)

Dark City

Directed by: Alex Proyas, 1998

Exciting film-noir sci-fi thriller that has sets and plot twists to die for. It's dark, melancholic and gloomy but also funny and inventive. Visually, scenes literally drip from the screen. The movie cost $27 million to make and despite a few goofy scenes Dark City looks like it had a budget of three times that amount.
Writer/director Alex Proyas (The Crow) has once again dreamed up a surreal world straight out of the comic books, blending cyber-punk with film-noir.
Starring an enigmatic Rufus Sewell and an intelligently sexy Jennifer Connelly, with great supporting roles in a pensive William Hurt and a spooky and fittingly gasping Kiefer Sutherland.

Dark City steals heavily from existing classics  Blade Runner, Metropolis, Brazil, Citizen Cane and The Third Man  while also borrowing from such diverse films as Naked Lunch, Jakob's Ladder, The Truman Show, Hellraiser, Burton's two Batman movies and Lynch's Blue Velvet.
Michael Ende's famous children book Momo (1986) also comes to mind, as does Franz Kafka.
Unfortunately there's a whole lot less than meets the eye and gradually it becomes clear that for the most part looks are simply everything here. Dark City is at times even clumsy (some scenes feel rushed; the shattered glass between Sewell and Connelly, and the escape/pairing of the three main characters). The ending is impressive  there's a nice surprise waiting  but some may find the rational interpretation a letdown.
Critics generally loved it; with Chicago Sun-Times' Pulitzer Prize-winning film critic Roger Ebert even picking it as the very best of 1998.
Ebert then later put his money where his mouth was as he recorded a complete audio commentary track for the DVD release (without pay or royalties).
That's the essence of Dark City; despite faults and lack of substance it truly inspires.