Interesting. Don't know that I ever heard of "Dark City."
Yeah, I'd almost forgotten about it, but this article has me wanting to get the DVD and view again. Some excerpts;
...
Much of the praise showered on
The Matrix in 1999 was directed at Hugo Weaving. His memorably villainous Agent Smith could be anywhere at any time, and fittingly, few could escape the stranglehold
The Matrix took on pop culture. The references, rip-offs, outfits, and
moral scares were everywhere, although by the time
Shrek and
Scary Movie parodied it, we were all wishing they werenāt.
Dark City, despite being declared Roger Ebertās best film of 1998, didnāt enjoy relentless meme-ification. It didnāt enjoy much of anything, really, beyond a smattering of second-tier awards and a poor box office return. Most reviewers werenāt as
enthusiastic as Ebert, who said the film excited him in the way
A Space Odyssey and
Metropolis had, but no one was too harsh either. And everyone could agree that the production design was stunning.
...
But while
The Matrix was influenced by anime and Hong Kong martial arts,
Dark City is pure noir. Rufus Sewellās John Murdoch wakes up in a grimy hotel to a dead dame, a mysterious postcard from Shell Beach, a bad case of forgetfulness, and a phone call telling him to move his ass (yet another thing
The Matrix ripped off). He does, but not before taking a moment to aid a floundering goldfish, inadvertently convincing William Hurtās laconic Inspector Bumstead that heās not dealing with an ordinary villain. Throw in Kiefer Sutherlandās creepy doctor and a crooning Jennifer Connelly, and you have all the ingredients for a modern Raymond Chandler pastiche.
But thereās a sci-fi twist, one so big itās difficult to discuss
Dark City without spoiling it. New Line Cinema worried it would be difficult to
watch without spoiling it, and forced the inclusion of an introductory Sutherland voiceover that amounted to, āHey, you dunderheaded popcorn munchers, the āRosebudā weāre going to keep mentioning? Itās that Kane guyās childhood sled.ā The directorās cut mercifully drops this imposition, and suffice to say that, when Murdoch witnesses the entire city fall asleep at midnight before pale weirdos in trench coats emerge to shuffle people around and reshape buildings with their minds, a murder rap suddenly becomes the least of his concerns.
...
If
The Matrix made you wonder if your life is a lie,
Dark City makes you wonder if life, as you understand the very concept, is a lie. Itās weirder, colder, more unsettling, the grumpy existential cousin to Neoās simple fable. Having the true nature of reality revealed to you may answer some of your questions, but it also raises more. Some of
those questions may never be answered, but you just have to keep pushing forward anyway. You can argue that
The Matrix executed its ideas better, but itās
Dark City that sits with you at night.
...
The brooding existential cousin to its more popular rival, Alex Proyas' thriller is still impressive and unsettling.
www.inverse.com
