DVD: Entertainment In Video EDV 9005. 97 minute film but a couple extras. Price: £ 3.40 (UK) but check around for the best deal). stars: Rufus Sewell, Keifer Sutherland, Jennifer Connelly, Richard O'Brien, Ian Richardson and William Hurt.

check out website:www.darkcity.com

'Dark City' is a rather unusual film. A semi-physical virtual reality only as much as its an unreal city that never has any day, people's memories are periodically changed and the landscape is re-built by the efforts of the minds in control who are clearly not human. Of the humans caught in this trap, only one is aware of what is what, a Doctor Schreber (actor Keifer Sutherland playing the role sounding like his own real life father) whose task is to adjust memories. Unfortunately, he fails to do this with one person, John Murdoch (actor Rufus Sewell) who awakes in a bath to find the apartment he's in also has the dead body of a woman and he has to flee before being arrested on a murder charge. The aliens or Strangers are also after him but he also successfully avoids them long enough to see reality change and also see people's roles change and question what is going on. Murdoch has few clues which isn't helped as people cease to know him and finds it hard to find allies.


Director and writer Alex Proyas seemed determined to make a SF film that didn't hand everything to the viewer on a plate which did something towards giving it cult status. By blending film noir with detective and SF elements, there is plenty to enjoy here with no ready answers and no final ending which I can't give away without spoiling it. As this pre-dates 'The Matrix' which came at a similar problem from a different direction and much later. Playing with virtual reality has developed into a common theme in SF films and everyone so far has taken a different take at it. Certainly, 'Dark City' should be amongst your films to watch or get.
It could happen to the reality around you but don't take my word for it. Sleep now.

GF Willmetts