Dark City (Alex Proyas, 1998)

Caught in the wake of the box office behemoth that was Titanic, Dark City got sucked under the tide, sputtering in with a weak $5 million opening and did little to distinguish itself at the box office. Since then, it has become a cult favorite of fans who’ve uncovered the science-fiction film on DVD. Count myself included. The former and currently indistinguishable character actor Rufus Sewell stars as John Murdoch, fittingly portraying a man suffering from amnesia (so, don’t worry, not even he knows who he is). He’s being pursued by the cops, specifically Inspector Frank Bumstead (William Hurt), for a series of grisly murders of local prostitutes that he does not remember committing… but considering he doesn’t remember much of anything, he decides to test whether he’s capable of such an act anyway. The set-up is similar to any classic noir detective story, with the protagonist trying to uncover clues as to the murders - and his own identity - all while avoiding trouble and/or capture. Well… it’s all in the detective model except for the fact that this all takes place in a city where the sun never shines, psychokinetic alien beings referred to as “Strangers” are monitoring human behavior and every night at midnight they alter our consciousness so that we believe we are someone entirely different than we were the night before. The film has startling and frequent comparisons to The Matrix (Dark City came first) including the fact that they used some of the same sets and both revolve around a main character who breaks a spell that the aliens/machines have over the human race. Murdoch eventually comes to uncover truths about who he is and learns to “tune” like the Strangers (the ability to alter reality by will) much in the same way Neo learns to alter the Matrix. Director Alex Proyas shows that he has a natural command of his visual settings, much in the manner of Tim Burton, but he’s not just doing an imitation here. Coupled with The Crow, Proyas proves to have a mastery of the dark-themed and shaded environments. Where the film slightly falters is in its conclusion. In order to truly harness his powers, Murdoch receives some of the worst, most obvious advice I’ve ever heard. On top of which, “tuning” is a mental attribute, so the concluding battle is basically an extended take of characters staring really, really hard, trying to overpower each other. And I thought those Harry Potter kids with their sticks were lame.