A sci-fi movie that makes you think

Rating: 10/10 (6 April 1999)

Alex Proyas has done something really special here. He has made an interesting movie with serious philosophical questions. What if everything you think is reality is only a dream, and the only place that reality exists is in your head? The plot concerns a city where its inhabitants are reinjected with new memories every midnight, hence what they think is their past is really just a story that has been implanted into their heads. In this city, one man wakes up and the movie follows him on his journey to the truth. What is really stunning about the direction is the way in which the audience is in the same position as the hero: they do not know what is going on in the beginning and slowly piece together the truth at John Murdoch's side. The most revelatory sequence, where John sees the shape of the city changing, is perfectly placed and suitably grand. A lot is explained in this sequence only through images. New buildings rise out from the ground as old ones melt into it, telling the audience, and John, the true nature of this city. All of this leads up to an ending fight sequence in the classic good vs. evil vein. The technical areas of this movie are stunning. The city itself is beautifully constructed out of dark, noirish images bathed in flickering lights. The special effects accomplish two goals which movies rarely accomplish anyome: they look gorgeous and, more importantly, serve to tell the story. It fully explores the consequences of living in the kind of world that is created here, unlike the newer release The Matrix, which borrows so much from Dark City, but fails fails to spark the imagination the way that dark city does. Here is a movie that will truly make you wonder about the nature of human beings: are we really just creatures manufactured by experience or is there really something inherent in each of us that makes us who we are. This movie, although probably aimed at the teen sector, will appeal to anyone with a sense of imagination and a romantic belief in the human soul.