Dark City

This review is of the Director's Cut. Welcome To Shell Beach. Dark City is directed by Alex Proyas who also co-writes the screenplay with Leon Dobbs and David S. Goyer. It stars Rufus Sewell, William Hurt, Jennifer Connelly, Kiefer Sutherland, Richard O'Brien and Ian Richardson. Music is by Trevor Jones and cinematography by Dariusz Wolski. A man wakes up in a grotty hotel bathroom and upon finding a dead girl in another room he realises he has no recollection of who he is or how he got there... There's a lot of Blade Runner fans still out there waiting for that film's sexual partner to…

**_Atmospheric, dark mixture of film noir, comic book horror and sci-fi_** A man (Rufus Sewell) wakes up one night to great mysteries: There's a dead prostitute nearby that he gets blamed for murdering, but he can't remember much of anything. Several people seek him in the ensuing night hours of the big city: a somewhat mad doctor (Kiefer Sutherland), a detective (William Hurt), his estranged wife (Jennifer Connelly), an alluring woman of the night (Melissa George) and a group of pale bald males in black trench coats. He tries to piece together reality and escape the perpetually dark city.…

Intriguing sci-fi This is one of my favourite movies of a spate of movies dealing with philosophical themes. This group would include The Matrix (reviewed here by me), The Thirteenth Floor and Gattaca. I saw this movie many years ago and it has stuck with me all this time. Don't be put off by my description of these movies as 'philosophical'-they are entertainment first and foremost. The philosophical theme of this movie is, I suppose, the old chestnut of nature versus nurture. Is there an 'essence' to human identity? To use a different example than that in the movie...if Hitler as a young…

This is one I probably haven't seen since the Director's Cut Blu-ray release in 2008 and while I liked it then, I now absolutely love it today. The cast and plot were wonderful to go along with the impressive visual effects, admittedly shrouded in darkness. I always like seeing Rufus Sewell playing a good guy as he's usually pidgeonholed playing either an A-hole or outright villain. Alex Proyas's Dark City is just a great sci-fi thriller that I actually place just behind The Matrix. **4.5/5**