For about five minutes , Dark City is the most boring experience of your life: A narrator explains how beings from a distant galaxy are experimenting on us poor humans to gain better understanding of the soul. These beings , called strangers , use a technique called "tuning" to shape reality into whatever fits their purposes. Following this corny intro , we are introduced to our heroes and villains at such a rapid fire pace that we fail to become immersed in this film. So yeah , for five minutes Dark City left me wondering if i should abandon my jumbo tub o' crispy , threatening to establish a permanent home in my throat and foul tasting pieces of dried up boogers ( commonly known as popcorn ) to the mercy of the kid kicking the back of my seat.
Then the fun began...
Let me tell you , Dark City is the real deal. An expertly woven story , more twists and turns than Ronald Reagan 's brow , acting ranging superb to good , a creepy music score and the coolest special effects in recent memory. Now i know what you are thinking , that any second from now i will start singing a song praising the glory of this movie. You might even suspect i think that Dark City is the second coming of movies. Eeeenh! Wrong , i am not trying to get more people into theaters to see this flick , as a matter of fact i happen to think that some people should stay away from it and stick to more healthy flicks like Titanic and Good Will Hunting.
Movies like this cater to a very small audience. Let me put it this way , if you hated Event Horizon because of it's religious overtones , hated the Devil 's Advocate because you thought that "it was all a dream" like some idiots i know and had trouble swallowing Contact because the possibility of alien life is way over your head...stay away from this movie. All you will do is walk away from it and tell all your friends that "it 's so darned stupid". That 's how closed minded most people are.
End of rant.
If you liked to movies mentioned above then you will enjoy Dark City. Not that the Devil and religion in general are important in this story but if you can buy that the Devil is here on earth , you have the necessary requirements to appreciate DC.
I will not give away anything more of the plot , just like the trailers for the movie. If you know too much it will ruin the half dozen surprises scattered throughout the movie. Suffice it to say , your jaw will drop to the sticky theater floor more than once. ( Just watch out for the green stuff on the floors , i hear it 's radioactif. ) In fact , i felt that the less than talkative trailers added to the fun i had. Who needs to see Wesley Snipes jump from the building in the trailer for U.S Marshalls? Or Bruce Willis save the kid from Mercury Rising before the train crushes him?
But i am moving away from my review. Rufus Sewell stars , for some reason he reminded me of Luke Skywalker. Especially during his final confrontation with the head stranger ( strangest stranger? ) who looks a bit like an unmasked Darth Vader. ( You know , the old dried up prune look. )
Anyway , i recommend Dark City over most movies now in theaters , except for most of the oscar nominated ones. All in all , one heck of a good time.
Rating: 3 and a half stars out of 4 for creepy bad guys , the best morphing effects ever , several "now i get it" moments and the single best , explosive , pulse pounding , Luke versus Vader round three and there will not be a round four , awesome ending ever.
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