Dark City 4K 1998 Director's Cut Ultra HD 2160p

Story Movie

A killer with no memory of his name or past is being pursued by police inspector Frank Basted. His wife Emma is looking for him, strangers are after him, and he tries to make sense of what's going on through scraps of memory.

Review 4K Movie

When discussing Alex Proyas' film Dark City, associations with Blade Runner constantly come to mind (some have even called Proyas' creation “Blade Runner of the 90s”). Both films are science fiction. Both are visually striking. Both flopped at the box office due to poor marketing and incorrect positioning. Both found recognition and an audience later, after being released on video.

The idea for Dark City came to Proyas in 1991. However, the script did not interest the leading Hollywood studios, who considered it “strange” and not commercially viable. In the end, New Line Cinema agreed to finance the film. It was released in 1998 and went virtually unnoticed by audiences. The main reason for this was the film's poor positioning (for some unknown reason, it was advertised as a horror film), an unclear trailer, and a poor choice of target audience. Alex Proyas once said that fans of the film are often very surprised to learn that Dark City was shown in theaters, because in 1998 none of them had heard of it. In addition, the film was overshadowed by The Matrix, which was released a year later and featured many elements of Dark City in a more “spectacular” version of many of Dark City's features, such as an artificially created environment in which unsuspecting people live, the chosen one, who is able to change reality with the power of his mind, and even the woman in red (incidentally, some scenes from The Matrix were filmed in the same sets as Dark City). But over time (after its release on video), the film finally found its audience, who rightly appreciated Proyas' work.

In terms of genre, Dark City is a kind of modern example of postmodernism, representing a mix of sci-fi, noir, and fantasy. The most memorable thing about the film is its atmosphere. Long streets flooded with the flickering light of street lamps, police stations, nightclubs, underground scenes shot in blue and green tones, detectives, beautiful women singing in nightclubs, a mixture of styles — all of this is very, very captivating. The scenes of reality shifting are very impressive, despite the low budget. In general, the film has many thought-provoking ideas: “Is a person a collection of memories, or is it something more?”, “How can we know that the world around us is real and not created yesterday?”, “How can we escape from a place from which it is impossible to escape?”

Of all the actors, I liked William Hurt the most in the role of the strict and methodical Inspector Bumstead. The role of the main character, John Murdoch, was played by Rufus Sewell. It should be noted that many actors were considered for this role during the casting process, including Johnny Depp and even Tom Cruise. But the director deliberately chose a little-known actor so as not to distract the audience from the atmosphere he had created. Rufus did a very good job with the role, although he certainly did not exceed expectations. The other actors—Kiefer Sutherland, Jennifer Connelly, and Richard O'Brien—also performed well and were enjoyable to watch on screen.

But the main character of the film is the city itself, which appears in the film as a kind of industrial conglomerate of crowded buildings, functioning according to its own laws and inhabited by people who do not notice all the strangeness of this world. The city is created on the basis of memories stolen from people, which is manifested in a mixture of styles and eras—we can see attributes of the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, and even the 1970s on its streets. The main character, like the average viewer, is a simple observer for most of the film, trying to understand what is happening here and how everything works. It is impossible to get out of the city. The characters seem to have fallen into a labyrinth and are walking in circles, trying to find a way out – but there is simply no way out, all there is are false memories of a place that never really existed.

Dark City is not the greatest masterpiece of science fiction cinema. It has its minor flaws, such as a not very charismatic main character and a somewhat chaotic final battle. Nevertheless, it is one of those films that stick in your memory and that you constantly want to rewatch to immerse yourself once again in the atmosphere of a place where the sun never rises and enjoy the sights of all these unusual buildings, empty streets lit by the yellowish light of street lamps, long, dimly lit rooms, canals, and the people who inhabit this strange place from which there is no escape.