What happens when a good sci fi story falls into
the hands of a mediocre director and screenwriter?
"Dark City" provides the answer, which is
that the film will be both vaguely interesting
and a turgid mess.
Alex Proyas serves as director, producer and co-screenwriter. His previous success was "The Crow", another film which relied heavily upon sets and mood to overcome severe weaknesses with plot and characters. Give Proyas credit for a decent original story, and for the gloomy, imposing sets, but he just can't direct. He seems determined to make bad actors out of everyone in Hollywood.
The story has a bunch of bald, creepy, levitating
aliens in trenchcoats taking over a city. They
are part of a dying race trying to learn about
the soul of mankind. Either that, or they simply
get off on messing with people's brains. Anyway,
they have enlisted Kiefer Sutherland in their cause.
He gets to act like some merger of Dr. Frankenstein
and Igor, and sticks syringes into people's brains.
These syringes contain their past memories, which
the aliens have cross-pollinated to the point that
everybody has a false identity. The citizens of
Dark City are clueless that they are all guinea
pigs in an elaborate conspiracy and social experiment
conducted by the humorless aliens, who all resemble
Uncle Fester from the Addam's Family.
But something goes awry. John Murdoch (Rufus
Sewell) is to be programmed as a murderer of
prostitutes. He is to have an estranged wife
(Jennifer Connelly, who is lovely but sleepwalks
through her role) and a detective hot on his
trail (William Hurt, who has never seemed more
disinterested). But John wakes up during his
programming. He now has no memories, and must
elude not only Hurt, but also the levitating aliens.
Fortunately for both Murdoch and mankind in
general, he somehow shares the aliens' abilities
to manipulate objects and generate skyscrapers.
Which leads at last to a big confrontation with
the aliens' ringleader, where they play a game
of "I can build more skyscrapers than you" while
going through much of the film's special effects
budget.
The success (even many critics liked it) of "Dark
City" ensures us of future expensive projects
from Alex Proyas. One can only hope that he
will put as much effort into generating actual
emotions from his cast as he will into constructing
his sets. (38/100)
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