Dark City

[Chainsaw Hobbit]

Dark City (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118929/?ref_=nv_sr_6) (1998) is one of my favorite movies. I'm not sure if it counts as fantasy, science fiction, crime noir, or slipstream, but its criminally underrated and sadly forgotten.

Has anyone else seen it?

[Goosefeather]

Yep. It's basically everything the Matrix should have been. :smallsmile:

To anyone thinking about watching this film for the first time, I cannot emphasise strongly enough that you either get the Director's Cut or mute the first five minutes - the makers were pressured into adding a short narration at the start that basically gives away the plot and spoils the film.

[Closet_Skeleton]

Yep. It's basically everything the Matrix should have been. :smallsmile:


If you think the Matrix should have been dull and empty of memorable characters.

[Chainsaw Hobbit]

If you think the Matrix should have been dull and empty of memorable characters.

The Matrix dumps most of the revelations on the audience in a single chunk, and becomes pretty mindless afterwards. Dark City spaces its revelations out, and stays haunting and contemplative until the end.

Dark City also has a much better sense of aesthetic. I found myself lost in the rain-slick, labyrinthine noir-style city. Its unique. The Matrix does a pretty generic cyberpunk thing. Its technically impressive, but not aesthetically memorable.

Also, Dark City doesn't have two awful sequels.

[Closet_Skeleton]

The Matrix dumps most of the revelations on the audience in a single chunk, and becomes pretty mindless afterwards. Dark City spaces its revelations out, and stays haunting and contemplative until the end.

The Matrix gets rid of its plot twist early because it knows that there's no point in hiding the premise and pretending that its a twist when the audience probably already knows the idea from the trailers. Dark City doesn't space its revelations out at all because of as stated above tacked on introduction.

The Matrix doesn't become mindless, it just delivers on 'normal guy finds out the world is ruled by malevolant super powered beings and then uses his own super powers to fight them', while Dark City decides to have boring action scenes inter-spaced with dire acting.

The Matrix is just philosophy 101 Platonic stuff with a bit of messianic archetype thrown in, but it does it competently. Dark City just likes being over-ambitious and throwing out questions about memory and personality without actually bothering to give the later to its characters. Its director is so in love with cinematography and mise-en-scene that he forgets that audiences don't really give a **** about that stuff and want actual people in their movies. I'm saying all this to compare with a movie staring Keanu flipping Reaves.

You can prefer Dark City to the Matrix all you want but you can't claim that there's some injustice that Dark City was a flop and the Matrix made money because its clear that Dark City didn't deserve financial success. If you want to talk about the merits of Dark City as a film, you have to completely ignore the Matrix comparisons because really, they only get brought up when someone wants to feel snobby and pretend this film is 'so much deeper than that stupid more popular film'.


Dark City also has a much better sense of aesthetic. I found myself lost in the rain-slick, labyrinthine noir-style city. Its unique. The Matrix does a pretty generic cyberpunk thing. Its technically impressive, but not aesthetically memorable.

Neither Dark City nor the Matrix have anything even resembling a cyberpunk aesthetic. The Matrix has one vaguely punk bit in a club at the beginning, its in no way a cyberpunk film. Its only barely Post Cyberpunk because it has virtual reality tech.

Dark City's 'noir' aesthetic is not unique, its noir. The aliens and their base is the where it gets to have its own character.

I can remember a lot more visuals from the Matrix than I can from Dark City, but that's cheating since one of those movies made me want to watch it at least three times and the other I've only seen once.

Trinity never really interested me, but she wasn't played by Jennifer Connelly and that movie had other women in it, so the Matrix is way better for female characters. Dark City just has one woman with little agency who can't sing (and is played by an actress I have an irrational dislike for, but I think the terrible singing voice is dubbed over by someone else).


Also, Dark City doesn't have two awful sequels.

That's true of a lot of movies.

[Winter_Wolf]

If you think the Matrix should have been dull and empty of memorable characters.

You mean it wasn't? :smalltongue: You know deep down someone had to take that shot. Seriously, though, I did like The Matrix.

As to Dark City, I found it quite interesting the first time I saw it, and I have a DVD copy of it after not seeing it anywhere at all for several years. Two things immediately became apparent on rewatching it: The weird mannerisms of Kiefer Sutherland's character quickly get on my nerves; and Jennifer Connelly is really the main draw for me (because of her looks, and I'm shallow like that). Overall I found the acting in the film to be so-so to terribad, the movie title is a little too literal--I understand why, but it's still hard on the eyes--and I wasn't particularly vested in the welfare or success of the protagonist. I still enjoyed the film. But it's not even in my top 20 that I've seen.

Dark City is one of those films that I'll say, "oh yeah, it was decent" but I'd never probably remember it off the top of my head or recommend it to people unless they're looking for a very specific kind of movie.