Alex Proyas' innovative science fiction movie is getting an impressive whistles and bells 4K and Blu-ray release from Arrow Films, including a total of seven commentary tracks and a wealth of newly produced, excellent extras.
In a film noir version of Fritz Lang's METROPOLIS, John Murdoch (Rufus Sewell) awakes in a bath in a grim hotel room. Also in the room is a dead woman with bloody spirals carved into her skin. The phone rings and a Dr Daniel Schreber (Kiefer Sutherland) tells John he has to get out of there as there are men after him. And what peculiar men they are, all dressed in black and consisting of very tall Bruce Spence, normal-sized Richard O'Brien, and a small child.
Murdoch finds himself wandering a city where it is always night but nobody notices, and where people change jobs, partners and lives at the stroke of midnight but again (almost) no-one notices. Police Inspector William Hurt is also on Murdoch's trail, believing him to be the killer, but what's actually going on is very strange (and, for its time, really rather original) indeed.
When DARK CITY was originally released word quickly spread that to enjoy it properly you needed to stick your fingers in your ears for the first two minutes to avoid the opening studio-imposed voice-over narration that essentially explained most of the film, and spoiling what was intended as a series of surprise reveals. The film starts off as a noir but as it gets stranger you start to wonder if any of what Murdoch is experiencing (and indeed what you are watching) is real. Movies like THE MATRIX used some of the ideas in DARK CITY and because the film is now nearly 30 years old it's difficult to describe just how mind-blowing some of this was back in the day.
Arrow's two disc UHD set gives you both films in 4K with the director's cut on disc one. This runs 112 minutes (11 minutes longer than the theatrical), eliminates the voice over and has scenes in a different order. If you are new to DARK CITY watch this first. The film comes with five commentary tracks & if you want to tackle them all a suitable order might be the archival commentaries first (director Alex Proyas, then writers Lem Dobbs and David S Goyer - recorded separately and then edited together - and finally Roger Ebert) then go to the new commentaries, with Alex Proyas first and finishing off with the highly entertaining and chatty one from podcast team Craig Anderson, Bruce Isaacs and Herschell Isaacs.
Other new extras include an hour long documentary featuring many of the crew and Rufus Sewell from the cast talking about their memories of the film, a 20 minute visual essay from Josh Nelson on film noir as related to DARK CITY and another from Alexandra West on the psychology of mazes. Also new is 14 minutes of storyboards and production drawings.
Disc two has the theatrical cut (101 minutes with voiceover). Watch this after the other version. There are two archival commentary tracks from 2008, one with the film-makers, the other with Roger Ebert. Extras here are all archival with a 44 minute making of and a 33 minute meaning of, which is a nice addition. There's also a trailer and an image gallery. Finally, this is an Arrow special edition so you get a 60 page book, double-sided poster, some postcards and a Dr Schreber business card as well.
Alex Proyas' DARK CITY is out on limited edition 4K UHD and Blu-ray from Arrow Films on Monday 23rd June 2025
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