I have seen films with concepts or plot elements like “Dark City” before; they were called “Metropolis” and “Total Recall” and I have seen films with a very distinctive visual style like “Dark City; those were called “Batman” (Tim Burton’s version) and “Dick Tracy” and while lots of things are clearly taken from those films “Dark City” is definitely unique.

In “Dark City”, the world is one massive urban area without a sun and every night it changes form so that aliens known as ‘strangers’ can swap our minds round in an attempt to find the human soul to use as a cure to keep them alive. John Murdock (Rufus Sewell) has discovered this and now is on the run for the telekinetic creature as he tries to prove to everyone else how the world isn’t real.

My only real complaint with “Dark City” is that the protagonist isn’t all that interesting and he’s played dully by Rufus Sewell, he lacks any kind of charisma and/or personality and that really lowers the film in my opinion as it prevents it from being a masterpiece. William Hurt (“The Incredible Hurt”), Kiefer Sutherland (“Young Guns”) and Jennifer Connelly (“Labyrinth”, “Rocketeer”) are all quite good as the supporting human characters and the strangers look magnificently terrifying.

The reason why “Dark City” is so scary is that this could be happening with our world and there is no real way to disprove it. The set design and atmosphere created in this dystopian future is just excellent. The chase scenes and action scenes are generally well done and the special effects are fantastic. “Dark City” provides just about everything except for a decent protagonist and we spend so much time with this character that it really does present a problem. In a movie this deep why can’t we have a hero that is deep too?