Dark City

So people have been recommending this movie to me for well over a decade. So much so that I bought it when I saw it for a couple bucks a few years ago. Still even with it sitting in my room it took me a few years to watch it.
Well, I can see why people think I would like this as it is clearly influenced by things like Metropolis & City of Lost Children & Brazil visually & it has the dream life plot that I’m often pretty into. To be honest, maybe if I’d seen this when it first came out I would have liked it quite a bit more as this pre-dates The Matrix & the countless other films making the dream-life plot trite & of course some of the special effects are a little dated. What’s weird is watching this I actually think it would’ve worked better stretched out over a much longer format. I could see this working really well as a six or eight hour thing with the mystery solved a lot slower. I don’t know, it doesn’t quite work for me & I can’t quite figure out why. I think part of it is the lack of proper explanation or even hints of what the city they live in is (seemingly a space ship) & how the reality of the city works nor why the lead character can control reality in the city much less control it to a greater extent than the Strangers nor how understanding the human soul will fix the dilemma of their dying race. I don’t know there’s nothing to make this movie particularly bad nor particularly good. I think in the end it might be that when you are trying to make a movie about something a little weird & out there you’re probably better off not needing to dumb it down enough to fit it into the Hollywood system.