A rare film: intelligent and highly original

Rating: 10/10 (22 June 2000)

Dark City is a deep, brooding masterpiece--visually stunning and more than a bit creepy. From the very first moments of the film it draws you into its alternate reality. Paranoia is the prevailing mood as shadowy figures control the world from behind the scenes and manipulate people's memories. Our hero, played by Rufus Sewell, wakes up next to the body of a woman he may have killed, his memories erased. His quest to find the truth about his life leads him to discover that nothing around him is as it seems.
While the future-noir setting was influenced by such classic films as "Blade Runner" and "Brazil", and reality-bending plots have been seen in a number of recent sci fi flicks ("The Matrix", "The Thirteenth Floor") the overall effect of "Dark City" is completely unique. The scenery and visual effects are fantastic and add to the atmosphere of fear, confusion, and suspense. The story is original and well-crafted, and the acting is generally superior. It raises thorny questions about the degree to which our access to objective truth is mediated by the press, by the filters of memory, by what we want to believe. There are also several in-jokes for anyone who's ever taken an Abnormal Psych class.
It's a shame that this excellent movie was largely overlooked. The only major award it won, for best Sci Fi movie, it had to share with the loathsome "Armageddon"--a travesty somewhat akin to the AFI declaring that "Citizen Kane" had to share Movie of the Century honors with "Jaws: the Revenge". Sacrilege!