I keep coming back to this movie !

Rating: 8/10 (2 December 2006)

I loved The Matrix and this one is its match. I've now watched it 5-6 times in a couple of years and I still enjoy it. This movie has the feeling of a film noir (and if you noticed it tends to feature 1940s-1950s type architecture, dress and even automobiles and takes place in only dark nights in this unidentified city). William Hurt plays your classic Sam Spade 1950s flatfoot type. While this city is not known to be any particular city, it most resembles New York City in my mind.
Kiefer Sutherland plays an interesting, almost quirky role--in the movie he has an odd way of speaking, somewhat accented and clipped speech. I'm not sure if he's attempting a German accent overlay on his English or something else, but his character is interesting...he is both a turncoat to the human race for his services to The Strangers and a turncoat to the the strangers when he helps Murdoch.
The visual effects are stunning--a whole city that reconfigures itself before your eyes, yet this does not distract from the plot. Aliens that are creepy (at the same time they remind me of Uncle Fester on the Addams Family--perhaps the bald heads, long heavy coats, as well as the pallor and sunken eyes, but certainly not the personality!). All taking place in a city that seems to be in in eternal night.
This movie is an intellectual one--not much on action, not much on blood & gore, but also one where the special effects are not the raison d'etre. Well worth watching.