Dark City: an underappreciated science fiction film

I thought I would share some underappreciated science fiction movies starting with Dark City. You’re welcome. This is an ongoing idea where I will share a few movies I think deserve more love than they get.

I will try tried to cover a broad range of genres – beyond being scifi, obviously. First up, Dark City.

Dark City (1998)

Why isn’t this film more famous? It is brilliant. Dark City is directed by Alex Proyas who did I, Robot, and The Crow. As you can imagine, the film is moody and great to look at, with a strong 1940s noir vibe. The cast is superb: Rufus Sewell, Jennifer Connelly, Richard O’Brien, William Hurt and Kiefer Sutherland.

The film starts with Sewell waking in a bathtub near the body of a dead woman. It turns out there is a nutcase murdering prostitutes and soon he has William Hurt, who plays a detective, after him. But the city is not what it seems.

At midnight each night, everyone falls asleep for an hour and a group of weird bald people, including Richard O’Brien, alter the fabric of reality and people’s minds. The only person who remains conscious is Sewell. He also has weird memories and starts to wonder why no one notices weird things. Like why is it always night? Where is Shell beach? And just what the hell is Keifer Sutherland up to?

I won’t give any more away but you really should give it a watch if you haven’t seen it. Critics loved it and Roger Ebert seemed to adore it. And that guy could be fussy!

On release, Dark City was poorly marketed and badly explained. They also released a weird cut – make sure you see the director’s cut. It also came out the same weekend as Titanic and that proved pretty popular.