Sometimes after a night on the Strip, I awake without a clue as to where or who I am or what ghastly, gin-induced deeds I’ve committed in the last hours since my memory vanished. Thankfully, the fear of God slowly slips away as memory pieces itself together once again.

For John Murdoch (Rufus Sewell), the lead character in Dark City, his memory won’t reappear even after downing a half-bottle of pain relievers and chugging a pot of coffee. Memory eludes John because he doesn’t have one and I thought I had problems.

As just another citizen in a nameless and timeless city, John comes to one-night sans memory with a dead prostitute in a strange hotel room. The phone rings, and a voice tells him to beat it because they know who he is, what he’s done and want him dead.

Advertisement

Right away director Alex Proyas (The Crow) captured and pulled me into this story as if a giant hand stretched from the screen, grabbed my head and placed me right next to John. The scene drew me in so well that I remained interested even through the confusing 30 minutes that follow as John struggles to reclaim his identity and rekindle the flames with his wife Emma (Jennifer Connelly).

To do this, John must take to the dark streets of the city in an attempt to hide from detective Bumstead (William Hurt), who wants to arrest John for murder, and a mysterious race of pale-faced, telekinetic alien men. Known simply as The Strangers, these beings want to kill John because he possesses abilities similar to theirs called tuning, which poses a major threat to their way of life.

Along with moving objects at will, The Strangers collectively contain the power to stop time. They utilize this capability to study humans’ memories to see if switching them can destabilize any sense of individuality or soul which The Strangers lack.

As John collects clues to his life, his path leads him to Dr. Schreber (Kiefer Sutherland) who understands and has direct underground contact with The Strangers. Dr. Schreber’s motives remain unclear, but he succeeds in shining some light on why buildings pop out of the ground and people fall asleep everyday at midnight. This also gives a reason for the set designers to excuse the cramped buildings and short streets that made the city look too fake like Gotham City in the Batman series.

Proyas keeps every frame of Dark City interesting to look at with noire shadows on the streets, special effects and creepy villains. If it wasn’t such eye candy, the fact that we follow a man around for so long that we know near nothing about would grow dull.

The pacing of the action scenes moves extremely well; something Proyas accomplished in The Crow. Instead of well-placed punches and choreographed kicks, the moves are reactionary and more believable.

As either a cop-out or because the film was way over my head, I wanted to know a little bit more about The Strangers like origin or history as well as motivation, hobbies and work skills. Exactly why John sustained the ability to tune stayed out of the story for one reason or another, but I think an explanation would have answered more questions than it created.

Advertisement*

Sewell’s average Joe appearance makes for a good victim on the run, and as the estranged wife, Connelly (Inventing the Abbotts) keeps a toned down, almost apathetic twist with Emma’s search for her husband. Sutherland’s gasp-pause-sigh vocal inflection of Dr. Schreber grows old after about two minutes, but his speaking parts are mercifully limited.

But the direction, special effects and all around ominous visual appeal of Dark City takes center stage. This is one of those films that makes you feel like you’re not watching anything special until all the cards are flipped but it’s still a couple cards short of a royal flush.

Directed by Alex Proyas

Written by Alex Proyas, Lem Dobbs and David S. Goyer