Dark City (Widescreen Edition) [VHS]
If you're a fan of brooding comic-book antiheroes, got a nihilistic jolt fromThe Crow(1994), and share director Alex Proyas's highly developed preoccupation for style over substance, you  might be tempted to callDark Cityan instant classic of visual imagination. It's one of those films  that exists in a world purely of its own making, setting its own rules and playing by them fairly, so that  even its derivative elements (and there are quite a few) acquire their own specific uniqueness. Before long,  however, the film becomes interesting only as a triumph of production design. And while that's certainly  enough to grab your attention (Blade Runneris considered a classic, after all), it's painfully clear  thatDark Cityhas precious little heart and soul. One-dimensional characters are no match for the  film's abundance of retro-futuristic style, so it's best to admire the latter on its own splendidly cinematic  terms. Trivia buffs will be interested to know that the film's 50-plus sets (partially inspired by German  expressionism) were built at the Fox Film Studios in Sydney, Australia, home base of director Alex Proyas  and producer Andrew Mason. The underground world depicted in the film required the largest indoor set  ever built in Australia.--Jeff Shannon