The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2019: Dark City (1998), directed by Alex Proyas

The Trailer

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The Appropriate Tune: "The Night Has A Thousand Eyes", by Bobby Vee

       This might be the biggest blast from the past that we’ve had on this blog, and that’s saying something from the guy who never stops making call backs to shit he’s already done. I mean the last time we saw Alex Proyas in the post title was about 6 damn years ago, when his 1994 comic book film The Crow held the ‘distinct honor’ of being the second film that I ever reviewed on here. A bit of a gamble in retrospect; this was the man behind the Will Smith-infused bastardization of Isaac Asimov’s classic I, Robot after all, and whose attempt at a major Hollywood blockbuster with Gods of Egypt sank like a golden turd at the box office (probably should have gotten folks who look like they could be Egyptian gods there bud). Not exactly what you might call a sterling reputation, and the critical and commercial failure of GoE means he’s probably not going to have many opportunities to flesh out that relatively small filmography in the future. Lest you write him off entirely as the Jan Brady of the Australian film world however, Alex Proyas has one more major film that’s probably worth talking about. In fact you could go so far as to say this is his magnum opus, the last glimpse of light before he was pulled into darkness. 

Yes, that was meant to be ironic.

Released in 1998 through New Line, Dark City is one of those films that sprints right out the gate if you’re not paying attention. Rufus Sewell plays a man who wakes to find himself in a bathtub in a fleabag hotel, with only a suitcase, a postcard of someplace called Shell Beach, and a dead woman with spirals cut into her flesh to his name. That name as it turns out is John Murdoch, but everything else is a mystery: His past, his relationship with the woman named Emma who claims to be his wife (played by Phenomena actress and Marathon alum Jennifer Connelly), that whole murder thing, and perhaps most pressingly, the strange men who are after him. Men with sharp knives and pale white faces, who seem to possess the same bizarre supernatural abilities that Murdoch is also developing. In reality however, everything seems rather...off. Gaps in memories that no one can explain, the way that night seems to drag on without end, even the city itself seems to shift and move under its own power. Who is John Murdoch, really? Who are these mysterious men? What is the true nature of the city? Well I normally don’t break the plot down beat by beat on these reviews so I wouldn’t answer these questions, but in this case I think it’s justified. You kinda just have to see it to believe it.

First off, credit where credit is due, Dark City is an amazing looking film for the time. Where The Crow felt like a very obvious attempt at aping the German Expressionist-inspired aesthetic of Tim Burton, specifically Batman, Dark City feels like a mastery of form. Hell, in some ways the titular feels more like Gotham than Burton’s take, a perpetually gloomy art deco hellhole of nothing but dark alleys and filthy rooms,  like the movie was marinated in film noir before it made it to the screen. With just a hint of Hellraiser style leather fetish gear, which hits just about every one of my art design buttons. 

       It also helps to mask much of the CGI used in the film, but that never feels like much of a hindrance to the enjoyment of the film. On the contrary, while obviously of its time the special effects never ended up feeling dated, unlike its peer and Marathon alum The Matrix, which ironically enough took place in large part during the day. Shifting rooftops are more tolerable than slo-mo dodging and bullet trails, I suppose.

       The problem then, as it seems there always must be a problem, is that Alex Proyas doesn’t seem to have patience or confidence in his own concept. The first couple minutes of the film are a mad rush to establish everything we need, setting up a very intriguing Memento-style mystery that ultimately ends up being irrelevant to the plot not even half way in. We get a glimpse that things are not what they seem in the city and then we immediately after jump into hardcore science fiction territory. Then, when we finally get to learn what’s really going on, apparently we need to be told it multiple times, because apparently this movie works on Beetlejuice rules and you need to say the plot multiple times before it becomes real. That’s almost entirely what Kiefer Sutherland’s character, Dr.Schreber, does for the last part of the film, just tell Murdoch/the audience shit, and let me tell you does Schreber’s stilted way of speaking get very annoying after awhile. If the story is complex/convoluted enough to need that much exposition, you could make it easier to listen to at the very least.

       Speaking of ol’ Kief, I’m not the biggest fan of the acting in Dark.City. Rufus Sewell is fine as our lead, and it’s fun to see Richard ‘Riff Raff’ O’Brien as the villainous Mr. Hand even if it’s not a particularly deep role, but Kiefer Sutherland quickly goes from interesting to grating and both Jennifer Connelly and William Hurt (playing Inspector Frank Bumstead) come across as rather wooden to me. I assumed at first that this was supposed to tie in with the theme of memory and how that ties into defining the self (or something like that, believe that was another thing they threw in at the last act), but considering they’re the only two that act like that it just comes off as weird, like a couple of characters from a David Lynch film wandered into the wrong movie. I mean they’ve got Connelly playing a doe-eyed nightclub singer, all they needed was a severed finger lying around somewhere.

A little bit of Memento, a dash of Inception, a touch of Batman  and a hint of Cabin in the Woods, and you’ve got the recipe for a Dark City gumbo. Although it makes a couple missteps, the amazing art direction and ambitious concept kept me engaged the whole way through, so I’m giving it the recommendation. The film’s got moxie, a vision that other films in the same genre lack, and I respect that. Give it a watch, whether you’re chilling at home this Halloween or relaxing on Shell Beach, I’m sure it’ll be a good time.