Dark City

rated - SIMMERING

This film looks good - great in fact. It has a very interesting cast. And it starts out looking like it will be really original. But as I watched, I began to think of so many of the science fiction films from the last 25 years or so. There are flashes of Blade Runner, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, The City of Lost Children, The Invasion of the Body Snatchers (Don Siegel, 1956), A Clockwork Orange, 1984, Brazil, Strange Days, the Chinese Ghost Story movies, and even some old Outer Limits and Star Trek episides! Dark City is not really very original after all. But there are some good things about the film - the director, Peter Jackson, creates excellent mood and atmosphere. He creates a different world, and draws us into it. Some of the special effects were particularly good - love those twisting buildings! There are enough good things about this film to make it a worthwhile cinematic experience.

So ignore the likely audience of solitary brooding adolescent boys, and see for yourself.