DARK CITY

Directed by: Alex Proyas (The Crow)

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DARK CITY Is an interesting film- Visually, it looks kind of like Blade Runner meets X-Files in a Raymond Chandleresque vision of a 1940s looking city. The story if condensed to a half hour would not have been out of place as an old Twilight Zone episode.

Rufus Sewell is John Murdoch (maybe) He wakes up in a bathtub, with amnesia, and a dead, carved up hooker in the room. The telephone rings, and the caller tells him to get out, they are on the way. And so begins the chase- John appears to be a serial killer. He is being chased by William Hurt (his talent is wasted in a rather minor role) as a good-guy cop. He is also being pursued by some strange pale men (and a couple of children) in black trench coats.

Jennifer Connely has grown up quite nicely. She is John's wife, a chanteuse with a Veronica Lake hairstyle. She first runs interference to help John to escape from William Hurt, then helps Hurt track him down.

The real bad guys are the pale people in black- They are a combination of Star Trek's Borg and Christopher Lloyd's character from Roger Rabbit. (hint: They are really aliens who have taken over the bodies of dead people.) They are there to study humanity. I don't really want to say much more about them or the plot, because it will spoil the movie for you.

Keifer Sutherland is starting to show his father's range of acting ability. In this one, he plays the mad doctor who is helping the aliens in their study. His character is a combination of of the Gestapo agent that was chasing after Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark, and any character that Peter Lorrie ever played. For the first half of the movie, his character is kind of cartoonish, but in the second half, there is a lot more depth.

This is not a movie for everyone- I enjoyed it, but it is not a family film- there is a lot of violence and nudity; Fans of Sci-Fi and of 1940s murder mysteries will probably like it, but if you are not a fan of these genres, you probably won't like it. A lot of critics have praised the cinematography, but for me it was TOO dark. Like X-Files, sometimes the low lighting to set the spooky mood actually obscures too many details. The story itself is an interesting concept, if not absolutely spellbinding. The special effects have also gotten some rave reviews, but again while interesting, they are not of Industrial Light and Magic quality. They would probably have been quite "cheesy" in good lighting.