New Line

I really wanted to like Dark City. The trailer looked very promising, the story sounded intriguing, and the cinematography looked amazing. Well, I saw the film and I must say I haven't been so disappointed by a film I had such high hopes for in quite some time. I won't deny the film looked beautiful. The look of the film is breath-taking. But Dark City turns out to be a case of style over substance. The film ran at 109 minutes but felt like 2 and a half hours. The first half of the movie held my interest but at some point in the film that interest simply disappeared. The special effects were great but they seemed to clash with the convoluted storyline. The universe in which this film take place is so bizarre, so unearthly, that you can't really relate to any of the characters, hence you don't care what happens to them. This film is for fans of hardcore off-the-wall sci-fi and offers very little to the average horror fan.

D+