An Incredible film and one where the Matrix got many of its ideas

Rating: 9/10 (13 May 2006)

Dark City was a phenomenal film that very few people know about. It is a dark surreal film from which the Matrix took many of its ideas.
Yes people, Dark City, released in 1998, came out before The Matrix, and it is, in my opinion, a somewhat better film also. Don't get me wrong. I enjoyed the Matrix just about as much as everybody else, but the concepts for the Matrix came from this gem of a film which involves a group of creatures dressed in leather who are able to stop time and bend and shape reality as they want to.
Human beings are used as experiments during these changes as these creatures, called The Strangers, put them to sleep with their special abilities. Afterward they shift reality and the humans sometimes wake up unknowingly as somebody else or remain the same with only there memories erased from previous times.
Of course one day and experiment goes wrong with one of the subjects as he wakes up before he is supposed to. His name is John Murdoch (Rufus Sewell)and he wakes up without knowing who he is in a bathtub. He is soon seeking to unravel the mystery of his life, and soon discovers that he also has abilities just like The Strangers, and quickly realizes after that that things aren't always what they seem in this strange world of illusion.
Also starring Jennifer Connelly, Keifer Sutherland, and William Hurt, Dark City is a truly magnificent visual experience that will have you completely stunned as the hero unravels the mystery of The Strangers, and the dark gloomy world that comprises them all. The ending fight scene is the only thing that takes away from the movies appeal because it seems a little contrived, but other than that, this film is definitely one of the best science fiction films of the modern era.