Dark City (Director's Cut) [Blu-ray]

Product Description

The critically-acclaimed triumph from visionary director Alex Proyas (I Robot The Crow) is back with a brand new directors cut featuring enhanced picture and sound never-before-seen footage and three commentary tracks that take you deeper than ever before into the world of one of sci-fis most exciting and revered tales. When John Murdoch (Rufus Sewell) wakes with no memory at the scene of a grisly murder he soon finds himself hunted by the police a woman claiming to be his wife and a mysterious group of pale men who seem to control everything and everyone in the city.Starring Rufus Sewell (The Illusionist) Jennifer Connelly (A Beautiful Mind) William Hurt (A History of Violence) and Kiefer Sutherland (TVs 24).System Requirements:Running Time: 111 minutesFormat: BLU-RAY DISC

Product Details

• Brand: Warner Brothers
• Released on: 2008-07-29
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: Color, Director's Cut, Widescreen
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: 1.00 pounds
• Running time: 111 minutes

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
If you're a fan of brooding comic-book antiheroes, got a nihilistic jolt from The Crow (1994), and share director Alex Proyas's highly developed preoccupation for style over substance, you might be tempted to call Dark City an instant classic of visual imagination. It's one of those films that exists in a world purely of its own making, setting its own rules and playing by them fairly, so that even its derivative elements (and there are quite a few) acquire their own specific uniqueness. Before long, however, the film becomes interesting only as a triumph of production design. And while that's certainly enough to grab your attention (Blade Runner is considered a classic, after all), it's painfully clear that Dark City has precious little heart and soul. One-dimensional characters are no match for the film's abundance of retro-futuristic style, so it's best to admire the latter on its own splendidly cinematic terms. Trivia buffs will be interested to know that the film's 50-plus sets (partially inspired by German expressionism) were built at the Fox Film Studios in Sydney, Australia, home base of director Alex Proyas and producer Andrew Mason. The underground world depicted in the film required the largest indoor set ever built in Australia. --Jeff Shannon

Customer Reviews

Brighter visual, better audio... sleepier edit.
I first saw Dark City the night it opened in 1998 and loved it. It was a fast paced, confusing rollercoaster, literally a dirty little secret gem of a film. I never minded the flaws of previous transfer, as the aural and visual grit seemed to fit the tone.

This new remastered version sounds great and looks better, more beautiful on my big screen than it was in the theater. Unfortunately, the expanded edit drags along, all the additions wreck the pacing! I watched this new cut, and all its bonus features, only to hear more of the pompous prattling that, as a fellow "creative professional," I've heard way too much of in my own career. The creative pro here, Alex Proyas, another wannabe fine artist working in a the commercial medium of feature filmmaking, is saying "It's nice of you guys to like my movie the way it was released... but look at the movie I really wanted to create. Isn't it so much cooler?" No, Alex, it's not. Commercial art is most successful when it's made with it's client in mind, in a collaborative process. You want the resources of the studios without submitting your precious work to the process. Over and over, it's insisted that the goal was not to make a "user-friendly film" ... but the extended cut is far MORE "user-friendly, giving up all its secrets like a cheap hooker on freebie night. When you show an audience too much, you force their imaginations to shut down, when you should be stimulating them with unknowns. No wonder that test audience was bored!

So.... anyway we can get the new digital treatment applied to the superior theatrical release? Unlike has been stated by other reviewers, both cuts are NOT on this disc, only the slower, less interesting--but prettier!--new cut.

Much better than the already good movie
I saw the movie twice at the theatre when it was released back in the 20th century ;)

I enjoyed the film very much at that time but I must say I've always been very frustrated about the editind... It seemed the first 25 minutes where just a juxtaposition of sequences with no real link together, no explanation, to fast and even the music was not really synchronised...

I was expecting a Director's cut for a long time and I can say that IT IS MUCH MUCH BETTER!! The plot line is now smoother, the intrigue ellaborates with good rythm, the quality of the image is sharp and the music is less a background noise this time and more efficient. Plus the commentaries are instructives and the interviews very informative.

IN A WORD: Buy the Director's cut and throw the old dvd away...

My only complaint: for a dvd made in Canada (mine was) there is no french subtitles (only a third of Canada speaks French after all! -ironic laugh-)

A masterpiece made better
Has it really been ten years since writer/director Alex Proyas (The Crow, I Robot) first unleashed the highly influential, groundbreaking, and underrated Dark City? Yes it has, and to celebrate being a decade old, Dark City has finally been re-released as a Director's Cut that preserves Proyas' original vision. Upon first viewing this director's cut of Dark City, you will notice some subtle differences, all of which help make Dark City even better than it was before. Gone is Kiefer Sutherland's opening narration, leaving the viewer to attempt to figure things out for themselves before the plot exposes itself. The special features carry over the commentaries from the previous release (including the one with film critic Roger Ebert, who called Dark City the best film of 1998), as well as some new featurettes that find Proyas and co. retrospecting about making the film. As for the film itself, I won't go into story details since you can find them on this page, but let it be said that Dark City is a film you will not forget. Innvoative for it's time and pre-dating anything The Matrix would do by a year plus, Dark City is a spectacular science fiction feast for the senses. If you've never seen the film, you are indeed doing yourself a disservice.

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