It was released in 1998 and almost written by Alex Proyas. For a film that doesn't use CG for it's main effects, it looks really nice and was a nice change of pace from Night of the Hunter and Carnival of souls. The main effects being the buildings in the city collapsing down into the ground and then rising up again as a completely different building.
The original plot of the film is that John Murdoch wakes up in a bath (full of purple water) unable to remember anything. He slowly makes his way outside of the bathroom, slipping on wet puddles as he goes and notices a syrienge on the floor. Also on the floor is the body of a woman, covered in blood. The phone mysteriously rings and the voice introduces itself as Doctor Schreber who tells John to get out of the hotel he is in. A bit like the matrix at this point, a person you don't know telling you to leave the building that you're in otherwise some bad men will get you. Following the instruction , John flees the hotel and ends up in a cafe, ducking away from the police who enter after him. He is questioned as he leaves but the prostitute from outside steps outside and rescues him. She takes him back to her place with the intend of 'doing business' with him. He suggests that he may be the prostitute serial killer but she doesn't care. Upon seeing a child in another room, John promptly makes his exit back home to his wife.
Later on in the film, John discovers he is the Serial killer but knows he didn't kill anyone. A new quest to discover Shell Beach comes into the film as Murdoch talks to people he knows about finding Shell Beach. A taxi driver says he knows where it is but doesn't know the exact route to it so can't go there and the subway train is an express train that doesn't stop at the station that is meant to be the change for Shell Beach. John takes it upon himself to walk there and encounters a sign that is above the entrance to the place but the tunnel below it is a dead end. Frustrated, he climbs the sign and encounters the strangers who need to kill him because deep down, he knows too much. Once again, alot like the Agents in the Matrix. John uses psychic powers to kill all but one of his attackers. Throughout the film he discovers that the time of the world stops at midnight, which is alot like Persona 3 and its Dark Hour. During this stopped time, the cityscape changes along with the people, with one injection, they become someone else. The buildings changing isn't done with CG at all, just with models of the buildings and it looks pretty great for what they've done. IT still seems to be in the scene and believeable even though it isn't anything we would ever see.
During his travels, John meets Detective Bumstead, great name I thought, who upon meeting and learning about John's predicament realises that he is indeed right. Why is it always nightime in the city? When was the last time he went outside the city? When was the last time he went to bed and slept? When two people find common ground like this in films, they must join together to find the answers. Doctor Schreber also joins with them, more through blackmail and threats of death if he didn't join. This is only because he has been working with the Strangers and discloses that they're Aliens studying human nature, whether they can be left alone or have to be taken care of. The aliens need to know for they will fully die out without such knowledge. It is also revealed that Murdoch shares the psychic ability Tuning which the aliens use to change the city. Its a good concept and alot like the matrix in that the Operators are allowed to change certain things inside the matrix without being a direct part of it. But of course both films have technicalities like operators not being able to go into the Matrix again and the Aliens can't interefere with the Humans or it'll ruin the experiment.
The experiment which was explained when Murdoch, Bumstead and Schreber destroyed the wall to Shell Beach yet only found space outside of it. The Dark City is alot like a hamster cage which houses humans so that they can be examined at all times but also changed, added to or taken away, to see how the inhabitants react. Though the humans in the film are injected with a serum which turns them into someone else: a policeman one day, a serial killer the next etc. Along the same lines, its pretty sad that you can be trapped in such a small place for eternty (The city is just a floating city in space) much like pets. The smaller ones that hardly get to leave their cages, it must get really boring.
Though Murdoch does have the power to change things through Tuning them yet is taken down by the Aliens to be used to house the collective minds of all of them. Dr schreber injects him with a liquid which is not the memories as planned but Murdochs memories to help him learn how to Tune better. John breaks free and destroys the lair of the Aliens killing many in the process before taking on the Head Honcho, Mr Book. The aliens do have good names too like Mr book, Mr hand, Mr wall. Simple names that are actually pretty good and hide alot of personality about them.
Murdoch and Book break out through the ground and into the sky above and duke it out using Mind Lazers. Its a bit like the end of Matrix Revelations but with less physical contact. Mr book then explodes and the Aliens promise never to interfere again.
John, quite happy with how things are gone, and in true film fashion recreates the one place that he'd longed for, Shell Beach. The outside of the city is flooded and sand is added so essentially it is now Light City (since he brought back the sun too) and Shell Beach. Wonder if he changed the subway and the taxi drivers so that they drive there.
I kinda wonder how people can easily change from one occupation to another literally overnight. Surely any injuries would carry over into the next day and the subject would be curious how they got these things? Along with children, we do only see the Prostitutes child but I will assume there are more around. You can't change too many memories or you may even forget your own child in time.
Also with Murdoch, is he really from Shell Beach, or are the memories of him growing up there a part of a serum he'd been injected with? The video clip of him there and the colouring book he made could be props made by the aliens and his memories written to believe he wrote these.
Ala: Is Deckard Cain a robot or a human?
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