Forgotten Kiefer Sutherland '90s Sci-Fi Gem is Free to Stream This Month

Summary

• A dystopian neo-noir sci-fi that should be a cult classic.
• It just happened to be released in the same year as some big budget movies.
• It's a piece of visually stunning filmmaking.

From Saving Private Ryan, through There's Something About Mary and onto A Bug's Life, 1998 saw critically acclaimed films in a variety of genres. The highest grossing film of the year was the Bruce Willis sci-fi disaster movie Armageddon, which grossed $553.7 million.

Despite its box office success, Armageddon scores only 43% on the Tomatometer. Another sci-fi film released in the same year scores 76% and has an audience score of 85%.

This Kiefer Sutherland film has a critics' score of 76% and an audience score of 85%. However, it only grossed $27.2 million against a production budget of $27 million and has been largely forgotten.

A top cast and stylish insight into the mind

Starring Kiefer Sutherland alongside Rufus Sewell, William Hurt and Jennifer Connelly, Dark City is a genre hybrid that can be broadly described as sci-fi. Written and directed by Alex Proyas, it's a dystopian thriller set in a futuristic world where the night never ends, but clearly influenced by noir detective films.

It's stylish, visionary, and has that edgy quality we've come to expect from movies that push boundaries and blend genres.

Influenced by the idea of a detective struggling to piece together clues because the world no longer makes sense, the setting is deliberately ambiguous, anachronistic, and slightly mind-bending. It takes some getting used to, but in the end it makes sense.

Overall, the film is a stylish exploration of themes such as altered realities, mind control and cognitive memory.

To create this world of confusion, the film was shot entirely on set, without using any real locations. This gave the production team (using relatively new technology at the time) the freedom to manipulate the city to suit the narrative.

What's it about?

Inspector Bumstead (Hurt) is investigating a series of prostitute murders in the city and suspects John Murdoch (Sewell) is behind them. When Murdoch wakes up in a hotel room with amnesia, a bloody knife and the body of a ritually slaughtered woman, even he doesn't know why she's there or what he's done.

After receiving a phone call from Dr. Daniel Schreber (Sutherland), Murdoch leaves the room just before a group of strange men, all wearing trench coats, arrive.

As he begins to relearn his own history, Murdoch discovers that he not only has a life away from the darkness of the city, but that he has powers that he shares with the alien invaders.

Dark forces are at play, and it seems that the mysterious Dr. Schreber is connected to the experiments being conducted on the city's inhabitants by the strangers who came looking for him in the hotel room.

A film for true cinephiles

It may never receive the acclaim that some other films released in the same year did. But Dark City is a movie that will appeal to true cinephiles everywhere.

You could argue that many of the characters are a bit vanilla, but by placing them in this unique setting, that no longer matters. The premise of the movie immediately elevates these characters above what we would expect.

It's also hard to criticize any of the acting performances. But what really sets this movie apart is that it's visually stunning.

Forget the writing, acting and plot. If you love movies, you can appreciate this movie for nothing more than its cinematography.

Where can I watch it?

Dark City is currently free to stream on Tubi for one month. Beyond that, it's available to rent or buy on:

• Apple TV
• YouTube
• Google Play
• Vudu
• Prime
• Sky Store (UK only)