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Dark City
New Line Cinema

8.6 based on 23 reviews Read critic reviews How did we calculate this? based on 16 votes Read user comments Rate this movie

FILM:

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MPAA RATING: R for violent images and some sexuality

Starring Rufus Sewell, William Hurt, Kiefer Sutherland, Jennifer Connelly, Richard O'Brien, Ian Richardson, Bruce Spence, and Colin Friels

Alex Proyas directs this futuristic thriller about a man (Sewell) waking up to find he is wanted for brutal murders he doesn't remember. Haunted by mysterious beings who stop time and alter reality, he seeks to unravel the riddle of his identity. [New Line]

GENRE(S):	Suspense/Thriller
WRITTEN BY:	Alex Proyas (also story) Lem Dobbs David S. Goyer
DIRECTED BY:	Alex Proyas
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: July 28, 1998  Video: July 28, 1998  Theatrical: February 20, 1998
RUNNING TIME:	100 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

If you don't fall in love with it, you've probably never fallen in love with a movie, and never will.

100

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

A great visionary achievement, a film so original and exciting, it stirred my imagination like "Metropolis" and "2001: A Space Odyssey."

100

Time Richard Corliss

It is as cool and distant as the planet the Strangers come from. But, Lord, is Dark City a wonder to see. [2 March 1998]

90

New Times (L.A.) Andy Klein

Full of provocative concepts, but, like most films that attack such metaphysical concerns head-on, things have become a tad too jumbled by the end to be altogether satisfying. It's a problem built into the subject matter...This all said, Dark City is immensely entertaining, as well as visually dazzling.

90

Newsweek Andrea C. Basora

Proyas floods the screen with cinematic and literary references ranging from Murnau and Lang to Kafka and Orwell, creating a unique yet utterly convincing world.

90

Washington Post Rita Kempley

Obliged to go from lost soul to demigod, Sewell's performance is as fascinating as Proyas's mystical vision.

88

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Dark City has as stunning a visual texture as that of any movie that I've seen...Visually, this film isn't just impressive, it's a tour de force.

75

USA Today Marshall Fine

Fascinating, visionary filmmaking. With its amber-tinged palette and its distinctively dystopian view of life, it may be the most unique-looking film we've seen in ages...[but] defies logic and makes frightening and unexpected leaps.

75

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

Proyas' movie lacks a truly rich or compelling story -- although the city secret is certainly a rich and compelling idea. All too often, Dark City seems a great production design in search of a movie, an ultimate modern film noir pastiche, in which the images are so strong they overpower the drama. [27 Feb 1998]

75

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

The story is dark and often violent, but it's told with a remarkable sense of visual energy and imagination.

70

The New York Times Stephen Holden

So relentlessly trippy in a fun-house sort of way that it could very easily inspire a daredevil cult of moviegoers who go back again and again to experience its mind-bending twists and turns. Although its story doesn't add up when you analyze it afterward, the movie does take you on a visually arresting ride that offers many unsettling surprises right up to a sentimental sunburst of an ending that has a paranoid undertone.

63

San Francisco Examiner Walter Addiego

It's full of visual flash, and can be enjoyed as a giddy ride, but you would waste your time trying to puzzle out the nuances of the story.

63

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey

An almost really good movie...risks leaving the viewer feeling like one of the bewildered automatons that move through the plots.

60

LA Weekly Manohla Dargis

[Proyas] hasn't yet learned how to enliven his characters as fully as his sets. Part of this is structural (somnolence is built into the script), but the greater fault lies with Proyas' direction of his performers, most of whom deliver their lines in a strangulated whisper.

60

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

It's all about the amazing look, cobbled together from an astonishingly evocative range of sources: "Nosferatu" and "Mad Love," "Brazil" and "Metropolis," a haunted mosaic of bits and pieces of movie memories.

60

Film Threat Anthony Miele

Hurt and Sewell are both quite believable as their respective characters, while Sutherland's performance is lacking in more than a few catagories.

60

The New Yorker Sarah Kerr

Perhaps too much attention to special effects.

58

Entertainment Weekly Ty Burr

It's a little short on coherence and long on comic-book sensationalism -- dig the hokey, climactic Battle of the Minds between the hero and a cadaverous Mr. Big -- but there's no denying the nightmarish pull of the film's aesthetic.

50

San Francisco Chronicle Peter Stack

Dark City grabs your eyeballs and squeezes.

50

Variety Todd McCarthy

What they have done is taken a few second-hand ideas from noir and speculative fiction and mixed them in occasionally striking ways, even if, in the end, the result isn't all that much fun.

50

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

Looks like a million bucks (or rather, a million bucks gone to compost), but at its dark heart it's a tedious, bewildering affair, lovely to look at but with all the substance of a dissipating dream.

40

Los Angeles Times John Anderson

Proyas is trying simultaneously to create a pure thriller and sci-fi nightmare along with his tongue-in-cheek critique of artifice. And this doesn't work out quite so well.

20

Chicago Reader Lisa Alspector

One reason this production-design vehicle is so incredibly boring is that the characters keep having to explain the plot to one another.

The average user rating for this movie is 8.6 (out of 10) based on 16 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Ben R. gave it a7:
I have to say the writing was excellent, very twisty, and it keeps you interested, guessing for more. But Proyas's directing was waaaaay to iver-the-top. Great writing, see it for the plot alone.

[Anonymous] gave it a10:
Good.

David W. gave it a10:
Visionary filmaking a wonder to see. I loved it !

Ralph W. gave it an 8:
I really enjoyed this movie. It had a gripping story that kept me captivated the entire duration of the movie. The plot was a bit choppy in places and Kiefer's performance was a bit below par. But otherwise excellent viewing.

Brad J. gave it a 9:
Not perfect, but damn close. Solid performances by Connely and Sewell. An outstanding performance by William Hurt, he was truly cast into a perfect roll. Overall a fantastic movie that suffers from one of the worst taglines ever.

Yoon Min C. gave it a 5:
A shameless sci-fi ripoff of noir, gothic, fascist, and dystopian(mainly Orwellian totalitarian)imagery, this film is overcast under(or eclipsed by)heavyhanded use of style and humorless buggyeyed execution. A bunch of extraterrestial cousins of Nosferatu with jellyfish brains and whiplashed necks manipulate the memories of humans to figure out the essence of the soul in order to save their race from extinction(couldn't they find a Pscyhology 101 textbook instead?). From what disease, you ask? How about from the boredom of being stuck in this movie? There's a nasty little kid among these vampire like critters but why only one? For effect, of course, but then this movie has nothing beyond effects, special, stylistic, or otherwise. The concept is, by now, a staple of sci-fi, with implications that are spiritual and political as well as scientific or Phenomenological. But, this movie, like the Japanese anime Akira, is too stupid to develop these themes and instead degenerates into a series of chases, fight sequences, and a final battle on the level of yoda and dooku tossing ever bigger objects at one another. This telepathic power is called 'tuning' and too bad one can't tune off this awful mess but there is the remote control... And, yet the movies isn't entirely without virtue. First, there is the obvious ambition, which in our summer blockbuster saturated culture, counts for something. There's also the commitment from actors; William Hurt is particularly good though Kiefer Sutherland is unconving as geek doctor and hollow cheeked Jude Law is shallow and lackluster as the Chosen One. Jennifer Connelly, though hardly a talent, has grace and beauty and knows how to use them. The CGI effects, though not overwhelming and even murky, stretch into something resembling boldness though never originality. And, it's generally well-paced and suspenseful enough if you want to tune your mind off. A sci-fi in the Terry Gilliam mode, excessive and inflated but hollow. Finally, I think it would have been more interesting not to have vilified the vampire folk and their agenda, for after all, they are only seeking survival. Their means may be evil but their impulse surely isn't.

D. Cole gave it a 10:
Absolutely awesome. Brings to life the true "Gotham City" that I wished Batman had really brought. Matrix similarities are obvious, but it was made first, so it gets credit where credit is due.

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