A man wakes up in a bathtub in a dingy hotel room, next to incriminating evidence of a violent crime he does not remember committing. A phone call instructs him to escape before gaunt, sinister enforcers, dressed in uniform trenchcoats and wide-brimmed hats, capture him. It is night outside — it is always night outside — and our lead character, an amnesiac named John Murdoch (Rufus Sewell) must search for answers in a city with shifting borders and escape the faceless villains using him for their rigid, reality-altering agenda.
Alex Proyas’ Dark City knowingly blurs the distinctions between the genres of “simulated reality” sci-fi and the moral bleakness of the noir thriller. Twenty-seven years on from its initial release (which pales in comparison with The Matrix in the following year) the dazzling sci-fi noir has been rewarded with a 4K upgrade from Arrow Films. The new release honors the scope and vision of a ‘90s gem that understood that paranoid sci-fi and classic noir saw the world in startlingly similar ways.
