a movie in a maze

Rating: Null/10 (2 April 1999)

Whatever you've read about Dark City, one thing is true: the production design is spectacular. It is a Dark City, with all the look and feel of some Naked City/Blackboard Jungle set updated with 1990's technology. Of the 10,000 elements that can make a movie move, this one nailed it quite right on the visual design side. It's not just a technical achievement - it's art. More money was spent on making another William Hurt movie - Lost In Space (also from New Line, oddly enough - is this where Bill Hurt goes to make science fiction?) but that movie looked dull and unimaginative in spite of the money spent on it. The same could be said for another bad recent sci-fi movie, Event Horizon. All right, you're saying, but those were space ship movies and this... this is a film noir murder mystery wrapped in a (editor's note: spoiler deleted). Whatever you want, if you are looking for a film that rivals Blade Runner for atmospheric visual effects, Dark City is a prime choice. Proyas' production and art designers, George Liddle, Patrick Tatopoulos, Richard Hobbs, Michelle McGahey (ain't the IMDb wonderful) should be hanging out a shingle. Someday I'll open a movie theater showing only those sci-fi films that NEED to be seen on a big screen, and Dark City will be in constant rotation.
Praise for the production design doesn't mean that the film is an overall success - the plot resolves in a manner I found unsatisfactory which kept it from being a truly great film. The story starts well enough - Rufus Sewell wakes up with amnesia, a dead prostitute, a room full of clues, and gets a phone call telling him to get the hell out of there. From then on its a chase through the twisty visuals as he tries to reassemble his past in a reality that may not exactly be what it seems. This is where the film eventually dead ends - he goes through all of this, tailed by police inspector Bumstead (William Hurt - kudos to Proyas for the character's wonderful name) who is also beginning to suspect the truth behind the ... seeming truth of Dark City. But the unmasking of the villains and their cause at the end was for me something of a disappointment. We get all of this build up and all of this mystery and the end it turned out to be (ed: spoiler deleted). As the doctor also searching for Sewell's Murdoch (Kiefer Sutherland) compares the people of Dark City to rats in a maze, this plot is also stuck in the same maze and doesn't really find its way out. In fact, I just didn't buy it at all - too elaborate a charade for the mechanics involved. If I can't suspend disbelief then the structure falls. At the end I had to throw up my hands and say 'close, but no cigar' to Dark City's narrative.
Acting credits are good all around to the cast. Hurt is terrific as the sour, sardonic Bumstead. Sewell is a good British actor (Cold Comfort Farm) with matinee idol looks who plays this role with the right touch of bewilderment and headlong flight. Kiefer Sutherland was my biggest surprise. A lot of film fans react to him the way I react to Emilio Estevez (err.. very negative), but his histrionics as Dr. Daniel Poe Schreber (another great name) were very effective for me. The combed back blond hair, the corpulescence, the weasel-y affectations, the glasses - he fit in well with the production design and kept the plot moving along as the red herring who knows where the real herring is.
I'm a Jennifer Connelly fan, and I see almost all of her movies. I think she's a good actress in addition to the beauty, and there have been a few clinkers in her film history. She doesn't have much of a chance to break through with this role - I thought her Emma character was a bit too restrained, although obviously I had no problem identifying with Sewell's desire to win back her love. But at least her choice of role for this film was a good one. Make more good movies, Jenny. I'm sick of seeing films where the only piece of decent production is you.
Final score for Dark City - see it. Even if the plot gets a B- due to a weak third act, it gets honors for visuals and design. If you've lost two hours of your life watching Lost In Space, then you deserve to see this. If you've actually spent $8+ at a movie theater to get in to see Lost In Space, then you should see this twice.
Special note: the total budget for Dark City was south of $30 million. Obviously the lack of a Schwarzenegger in the credits helps keep the cost down, but if Proyas can make THIS quality of film for THAT price when movies costing 4 times as much STINK, then Proyas, let's set up a movie studio.