Dark City: Rating: 5 stars

Telling you anything will spoil the movie for you. And trust me, you do not want to be spoiled.

Dark City (1998)
1998 · R · Science Fiction
Reviewed September 24, 2007

On slow Saturday afternoons when I’m feeling particularly sedate, I make it a habit to watch at least the first five minutes of any new (to me) movie that’s being shown on TV — it’s a good way to preview films for my Netflix list, and it helps me weed out the really crap films. Within the first two minutes of this film, I was 99% sure it was going to be weeded out — first there’s a terrible voice-over that spoils the whole plot, then Kiefer Sutherland showed up as the stereotypical limp-gaited, nervous Mad Scientist™, which did not seem to bode well for the rest of the film. But just as my finger crept to the remote’s OFF button, Rufus Sewell appeared… naked. Okay, I’ll bite. And fifteen minutes later I was so deep into the story line that I was yelping with frustration whenever it broke for commercials. What looked at first like a bad attempt at Memento-style mystery turned out to be a brilliant combination of timeless science fiction and golden-era film noir. Everything worked perfectly, every element and plot twist — yes, even Sutherland’s rabbity persona, which turned out to be perfectly in character… considering what he’d been through. (In fact, it was the three-second flashback scene that explained his character’s personality that made me say out loud, “Oh my God, I love this movie!”) This film has been compared to The Matrix (which came a year later) for its similar plot and scenery; though there are obvious parallels (and though The Matrix, with its big-budget action scenes and glitzy CGI, will probably always be the more popular film), Dark City is, as its title implies, much darker and more frightening than the self-important, grandiose Matrix films. The Matrix hands you the whole story, front to back, on a silver platter; Dark City requires you to think and imagine, and doesn’t offer up any easy answers about the past or the future. (Note: If you’re watching this for the first time, keep the sound muted until Kiefer Sutherland first appears, so that the voice-over doesn’t spoil the whole plot for you.)