On D List of Movie Reviews
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Dark City (1998)
Rate:
1
Viewed:
1/03, 7/04, 2/25
2/25:
Dark City has always deserved '1'.
It's an all-time bad movie. None of the concepts is original as they're rip-offs from
Total Recall,
Invasion of the Body Snatchers,
The Truman Show, Blade Runner, and
Hellraiser with a faux neo-noir look. Alternate reality? That's Philip
K. Dick stuff. I would've been okay with it had the writing been more sensible and the editing
normal, but neither happened.
There's a minute or two to explain what the whole thing is all about, and the rest of it is just pure
rubbish in a city that's constantly empty sans the traffic. On the other hand, the editing is awful, and I can't
believe it was done by Dov Hoenig because he did Heat,
The Fugitive,
The Last of the Mohicans, and
Manhunter. Every sequence of shots is 70% complete before moving on
to the next one, making it hard for me to absorb Dark City as a whole. Unsurprisingly, he did one more
film before retiring.
I think the special effects caused people to overrate Dark City like how it happened with
The Matrix. But that alone can't be enough. Nearly no film ever makes it
without a good script. Once this is established, there's no hope anymore, regardless of how beautiful the
cinematography is or how dazzling the special effects are.
If there's a textbook definition of thespians mailing their performances in, this is it. Watch how little
Rufus Sewell changes it up. Jennifer Connelly has always been the same since the start of her acting career.
William Hurt's days of being A-list actor ceased during the late 80's. Kiefer Sutherland tries but ends up looking
ridiculously miscast, and he attempts to achieve some "depth" with his partially covered eye. To his credit,
he thought the script was sent to him by mistake, thinking it was meant for his father.
All in all, Invasion of the Body Snatchers and
Blade Runner had already been there first, so why must there be
Dark City?