Upon awakening with a start in an icy bathtub in a strange room--with a woman's dead body inconveniently nearby--John Murdoch can't remember how he got there. With a police detective hot on his trail and a psychiatrist skulking around, Murdoch discovers that the key to his mystery is the presence of strange extraterrestrial .. Read more
| Starring | Rufus Sewell, Kiefer Sutherland, Jennifer Connelly, Richard O'Brien |
|---|---|
| Director | Alex Proyas |
| Genres | Thriller |
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Upon awakening with a start in an icy bathtub in a strange room--with a woman's dead body inconveniently nearby--John Murdoch can't remember how he got there. With a police detective hot on his trail and a psychiatrist skulking around, Murdoch discovers that the key to his mystery is the presence of strange extraterrestrial creatures, the Strangers, who are experimenting with the memories of the humans in his city--from which there may be no escape. Ambitious sci-fi noir, with rich production design and a dense, Kafkaesque concept.
| Starring | Rufus Sewell, Kiefer Sutherland, Jennifer Connelly, Richard O'Brien, Ian Richardson, William Hurt, Colin Friels, Frank Gallacher, Bruce Spence, Ritchie Singer, Nicholas Bell, Melissa George, David Wenham, Jeanette Cronin, Terr |
|---|---|
| Director | Alex Proyas |
| Studio | ENTERTAINMENT IN VIDEO |
| Run time | DVD: 1 hr 36 mins Blu-ray: 1 hr 36 mins |
| Certificate | |
| Genres | Thriller |
| Language | English |
| Subtitles | English |
| Released | DVD: 26 Jul 1999 Blu-ray: 02 Nov 2009 Production year: 1998 |
| Format | DVD |
Nicolas Cage's latest crazy-ass sci-fi thriller actually proves to be very entertaining... read more »
The similarities between The Matrix and Dark City are strong. Both focus on brooding central characters somehow out of sync with the world around them and becoming aware of their own capabilities. In fact, The Matrix was filmed directly after Dark City at Fox Studios on Australia's Gold Coast. Parts of the rooftop sets were used for both films.
Rufus Sewell plays the main character, John Murdoch, as a man struggling to reach the truth of both the city and himself.
Kiefer Sutherland, complete with limp and weird accent, is John's tortured mentor. Jennifer Connelly plays his wife, the pseudo femme fatale, who needs rescuing herself. The city too is a character, menacing and alive.
Perhaps if this film had had a Matrix size budget it would have garnered more attention. Perhaps that's for the best as we're guaranteed no lesser sequels. As it stands, Proyas has created a little known gem with images and ideas which swirl in the mind for a long time after viewing.
Nice initial atmosphere, sets etc. Some nice ideas - especially the city experiment thing. Inconsistent, doesn't really make sense, pretending to be cleverer than it is. Totally rubbish ending.
A cut above the crud that Nic Cage has been perpetrating on a regular basis lately, Knowing is a strenuously doomy sci-fi thriller that takes itself more seriously than something like Next, despite certain similarities in the story department. Cage’s MIT professor John Koestler is intrigued, at first, then dismayed, when he examines the missive his son has brought home from school. It is a letter from half a century ago, when the pupils of a local school left their predictions about the... Read more