A review of "Dark City": a neo noir sci-fi that inspired The Matrix
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Plot
In a hotel room, John Murdock (Rufus Sewell) awakens to discover a dead body. In search of the truth, the guy finds himself lost in a city with no name and enveloped in a never-ending night, unable to recall who he is or what his prior life was like.
Murdock, after finding his wife Emma and speaking with the enigmatic scientist Daniel Schreber, learns he is being pursued not only by investigator Frank Bumsteadum, but also by a group of humanoids with terrifying telekinetic abilities known as the "Strangers".
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Why should you watch it?
Alex Proyas became one of the "hot names" in sci-fi film and its surroundings as a result of The Crow's global success (due to the tragic fate of its protagonist Brandon Lee).
(check my review if you are interested in the movie:
The Crow - a must watch movie with Brandon Lee
The Australian director, who had a large number of resources at his disposal, once again plays with the settings, building a "dark city" from scratch and filming the entire movie in a studio, using no 'real' locations at all.
The result is a city that seems to have emerged straight from a dreamlike imagery, evoking many others without being specifically related to any of them.
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Dark City has no specific setting; it might take place at any time in history or in any location in the United States. The characters travel between run-down coastal museums, filthy, prostitute-filled hotels, police stations straight out of a Raymond Chandler novel, and smokey clubs where Jennifer Connelly performs in front of an antique microphone with an angelic voice. Proyas alternates massive sets with cutting-edge special effects that move every time nightfall (though it might equally be midday) and deform and reconstruct the city, giving it a new face, with these decadent and dusty interiors. In a dungeon, a massive clock indicates the time when everything comes to an end, everyone falls asleep, and their life changes. In the City, if they so choose, you can go to sleep as a regular person and awaken as a murderer. In the City, you can believe you have been working at the same job for 25 years even though you were only put there a few seconds ago because the emotions you feel have been implanted into your brain. And if you wake up during the city's artificially induced sleep, you can either lose your mind or become the only person capable of dispelling this illusion.
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The City is a vision—a dream or a nightmare in which our memories and our souls are inextricably linked, in which an ancient race with a single collective mind tries valiantly to comprehend what makes us special, and in which they create a false universe around us in order to steal our individuality unhindered. A zoo where the sun never rises, where emotions you've never experienced are forced upon you, and where your genuine past is gone and lost for all time. Who knows if Earth exists, if there is anything outside of that channel, and if the Ocean is nothing more than a ghostly, faint remembrance of something that never was and never will be.
The four main characters complement one another, and each has a distinct role to play. Ranging from the perplexed Rufus Sewell to Jennifer Connelly's magnificent dark-lady, William Hurt's tough detective to Kiefer Sutherland's troubled doctor, the cast's uniformity and their alter-egos succeed in making the development of relationships credible and forging an audience connection.
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Dark City has a story that, perhaps, has a few too many twists and turns, leaving the viewer constantly in the dark about what lies ahead on the path to the truth.
Conclusion
Dark City was sadly not well received by the audience, which resulted in a box office failure approximately equivalent to the production expenditure. This did not stop Proyas' movie from becoming a cult classic, and an inspiration for a lot of other movies that came after (like Matrix, one of my favorite movies).
If you have not seen this movie, and you are a fan of sci-fi, then you have no time to lose... go and see it!!!
Rating
My personal vote is:
8.5/10
The aura looks like matrix hehe just my opinion
I even didn't know about this movie! I should take a look to see if I agree with u
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Great film, great cast. For some reason the "strangers" always reminded me of Hellraiser's Cenobites. To be honest, I highly doubt The Matrix was inspired by Dark City in any way - for one, the release dates differ only by one year. It's impossible to write, shoot and release a big studio production movie in a span of one year. Furthermore, I have always found it interesting how rebels who were connected to Matrix used almost identical method for that purpose to one in William Gibson's cyberpunk novel Neuromancer. I could definitely see inspirations coming from there. Dark City itself seems inspired by Kafka a lot.
Hi @peerynt, thanks for the comment and sorry for the late response. Of course I am not saying that they copied the idea of the movie, since as you say it was released only 1 year before, but I think that the Wachowski probably looked this movie and liked the setting and atmosphere which is similar. At least this is what I like to think, but maybe it is not true 😅
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I discovered this film a few years ago and I was amazed by it. It surprised me to realize it was produced before the original Matrix film, because even though there are important differences, there were also a few similarities.
I loved this film and I have even watched it several times since I discovered it. It is truly a must watch for anyone who is fan of this genre.
I totally agree, I also discovered it recently and it was love at first sight... I think that the Wachowski brothers took a little bit of inspiration from this movie (not too much maybe casue I think they were producing The Matrix since years before)