# Dark City (1998)

### reviewed by
Aaron Michaels

    DARK CITY
    *** (R)
    (out of four)

John Murdoch: Rufus Sewell Inspector Frank Bumstead: William Hurt Dr. Daniel Poe Schreber: Kiefer Sutherland Emma Murdoch/Anna: Jennifer Connelly Mr. Hand: Richard O'Brien

Directed by Alex Proyas. Written by Proyas, Lem Dobbs, & David S. Goyer. Running time: 100 minutes. Rated R (for violence and nudity).

    BY AARON MICHAELS

Dark City is a dark, dark movie. It deals with a group called the Strangers who have taken over a city and are using the locals as experiments. They have an ability to "tune" which causes people to sleep and buildings to move. They imprint thoughts into people's brains to see what makes them tick while they are asleep.

John Murdoch (Rufus Sewell), a young man who is your everyday guy, wakes up the middle of being imprinted. His memory is lost. He stumbles around and notices a dead prositute horribly murdered near him. How could he have done this?

He gets a phone call from a excentric doctor Dr. Schreber (Keifer Sutherland) telling him to get out the building because the Strangers will find him. He travels around the city for the next 90 minutes being chased by an Inspector Bumstead (William Hurt) and the Strangers lead by a pale-faced man named Mr. Head (Richard O'Brien) while peacing together the story.

Dark City is a technically well made film. Proyas along with cinematographer Dariusz Wolski, composer Trevor Jones, and the art and set direction teams have created a very interesting world for the activities to exist in. Towering buildings and city streets are a marvel to look at. The script by Proyas, Lem Dobbs, and David S. Goyer is also good and features a new suprise constantly. It plays out like a dark comic book that was made picture by picture into a movie.

The cast does a fine job with Sutherland and Hurt being the standouts. Sutherland has always been a sub-par actor in my mind with has villianous turns in The Lost Boys and Freeway but in this film he plays a not good, but not bad guy very well. He seems to be having fun gasping for air constantly just to sputter out fast dialogue. Hurt has always been a good actor and he is a great choice as the inspector due to his charm and intelligence.

Almost all films that use visual effects extensively overuse them and use them for stupid reasons. CGI is almost always just used to create beasts or fake looking stunts but in Dark City it is used correctly. It adds to the film very well and is a must have. The "tuning" scenes highlight the greatness of the technology.

I do have a complaint with the film though. Jennifer Connely has never been a good actress. She always plays a girl who every guy goggles at and seems to just be eye candy. In this film she plays Murdoch's girlfriend and I didn't feel that she was a character. She wasn't interesting even though she had to be to pull off the character. She looks out of place in an science fiction film.

With my complaint aside, Dark City is one of the better science fiction to come out of Hollywood (actually the film was shot in Australia) while other films are just gory space pictures. Proyas continues his streak of comic book scripts that are put to screen that he started with The Crow and I am anticipating his next book on film.

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