Dark City - New Line Platinum Series

Rating:
Summary: Before there was The Matrix...there is DARK CITY
Review: DARK CITY visually is sci-fi masterpiece. Conceptually,what you think you know is what you get.Alex Proyas,director of rather puerile CROW,slams grand into cinematic cosmo-seats in this exceedingly entertaining excursion into high-tech gnosticism. Fritz Lang's METROPOLIS; St.Augustine's CITY of GOD;Franz Kafka's "Penal Colony"; The TRIAL and The Castle...and predetiNation of Stephen Soderbergh's KAFKA comprise of the same name...are finely(or garishly)"tuned" into original MATRIX. There,"somewhere over the rainbow", H.P.LOVECRAFT-ian yucky/nefarious super Adepts from another aeon,have attacked Mankind and bottled him off to see The Wizard. Mission:steal & seal themselves with the OverSOUL of humanity and immortality. Woah!

Rufus Sewell is excellently adrift as John Murdoch-Mutant Man (proto-Neo)and would-be savior. Jennifer Connelly is his Eternal Feminine Lady Grace who...indeed as Goethe says..."lures to perfection." Kiefer Sutherland plays JUDAS-Dr.No/Maybe to well-stretched but fascinating T. William Hurt's Everyman Detective,along-for-noir ride/Quest down Darkest of Yellow Brick Roads is A-OK to the max. The baddies led by Mr.Book(Ian Richardson) and his obscene, epicene bald STRANGER homies are THE WORST.The whole deal climaxes with Apocalypse Then ending worthy as possible trailer-spoiler to THE RETURN OF THE KING...
This often stunning film justly deserves renown as cult favorite. When soon-to-settle Star(Wars)dust does fade into the sun set, DARK CITY will re-emerge and claim a shining place among the rare,truly great quest fantasies framed in grim garb of PM science fiction.

Rating:
Summary: Skip the voiceover!
Review: I must admit, the first time I saw Dark City, I had to make an effort to like it. I appreciated its wonderful visuals and its oppresive atmosphere, but I came away feeling vaguely dissatisfied for some reason. However, after a little while I found myself wanting to watch it again and again, and every time there was something more to discover about Dark City. It's common to compare this movie to the Matrix, and while I would agree that I liked the Matrix better the first time around, after that first viewing I had very little desire to watch it again. Not so with Dark City; I've seen it 4 or 5 times by now and I still feel like there's more to see. Alex Proyas has created what seems to be a fiction universe with no boundaries; the city of the night seems to go on forever and is constrained only by your imagination.

I must admit, though, that the climax does not really fit the rest of the film. I wish Proyas had found a way to settle things psychologically rather than physically, but that is a small quibble, and the conclusion of the film still takes my breath away.

WARNING!!! Please, for your own sake, fast forward through the voiceover at the beginning of the movie. You can go back and watch it later if you want, but if it's your first time watching it will ruin it for you. Fast forward until you get to the "Dark City" title screen, and watch from there.

Rating:
Summary: THE ORIGINAL MATRIX!
Review: One word, Wow.

What a visually stunning film from a director of one of the best movies of all time, The Crow! An incredible story packed with visually stunning cinematography, special effects and an original story. I honestly never thought Alex Proyas would be able to top The Crow on a visual level but he certainly did, although I cannot compare The Crow to Dark City on a story based level, Dark City was more visually stunning than the crow but we also have to keep in mind when The Crow was made. Don't get me wrong, The Crow is one of my favorite movies but the Dark City also deserves a lot of credit for it's originality, visual triumph, and ability to let the mind wonder away into the world of unknown during the movie.

I will definitely watch this movie over and over again simply because it is just that good. Seeing that is came out in 1998, it still puzzles me how this movie did not become a cult classic just yet. It seems as if the audiences still don't know about this great movie so I am hoping that some of you that read this will go out and rent this puppy. I realize I am not getting too deep into the plot structure and what the movie is really about but there is a good reason why I am doing that. If I start it off I will ruin the whole movie for you so it is best that you go out, rent this and enjoy it for yourself. If you are a fan of Blade Runner/The Matrix/The Crow or any other movie bordering these three, you will enjoy Dark City. Go!

Rating:
Summary: Interesting, disturbing even, but NOT scarry....
Review: First, I LOVE the sets and the visual effects - superb.

Second, Rufus Sewell and Kiefer Sutherland gave first class performances.

The wardrobe, sets, and makeup had a lot of potential for horror but it just didn't come out that way.
Several scenes were disturbing but nothing really shocking.
Certainly no horror moments in this movie - feel free to watch it with the lights out and a lightening storm outside.

NOT a scarry movie - too bad, could have been a good one.

Rating:
Summary: one of the very best
Review: Truely one of the best Sci-Fi movies of all time. Beautifully brought to life by the entire cast. What can I say, everything is perfect. Top director, superb camera work, great lighting, good actors. If you haven't seen this movie before and you like new ways of looking at the adventure/sci-fi genre with a philosophical twist, this one is for you. You need to have this in your collection. You won't get bored, not even after watching it for the 12th time.

Rating:
Summary: The fragmentary memory !
Review: This idea is extremely interesting . To break your personal memories and to build an evil game : to built a puzzle with isolated fragments here and there .

The metaphor leads to brilliant reflections. The night task is among other things time to think and evoke . Somehow the night approximates to a natural blindness .

But the aliens creatures -The Strangers- can not resist the sunlight . Like legitimate descendents of Nosferatu their Empire is possible when you are sleeping . And that clever device : to stop the time just at midnight only five minutes to install new memories reminds us the ancient procedures in ancient and even civilizations .

Perhaps the commemorative tradition of celebrate the New Year doesn ' t mean to intend suspend the inscrutable time pace and reinitiate a new year to mock even for brief instants of the merciless and unavoidable Cronos ? . Somehow the new promises , illusions and hopes made every Dec 31 are not an unconscious attitude to become in other person ?

Don't you find fascinating the fact the acting be the only profession in which you are capable to live many lives in just one ?

In the other hand who are they , what do they represent? Think it over . Perhaps they mean what the mankind will become in a the future . Our enormous and huge information resources symbolize neither more nor less a memory storage .

Think in the last dialogue when the dying last survivor inquires to our troubled hero and he responds him : you searched in the wrong place . The nature of the human being isn't in the brain ; it' s not so simple. Because the memory by itself it's not enough . It's an excellent placebo but do not ask it for more .

The stunning special effects are first rate as well as William Hurt acting , though the story deserved , to my mind , a major and best treatment . With special emphasis in what the time and memory affects us through a dialogue which would have overcome the anecdote .

The sinister surrounding environment reminds us to Blade Runner , Batman I , but also invites us to read again the Cave Tale in Plato `s Republic : the uncertain line which divides the sanity from the insanity ; the illusion and the reality ; that's what, among other issues , the film deals about.

The time is the body and place of the history ; the memory is the human shape of the time .