Dark City

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General		Extras
Category	Science Fantasy	Theatrical Trailer(s)	Yes, 1
Rating		Other Trailer(s)	None
Year Released	1997	Commentary Tracks	None
Running Time	96 minutes	Other Extras	Cast & Crew Interviews Featurette - Untitled (5 mins) Cast Biographies
RSDL/Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Movie
Region	4	Director	Alex Proyas
Distributor	Roadshow Home Entertainment	Starring	Rufus Sewell Kiefer Sutherland Jennifer Connelly Richard O'Brien Ian Richardson William Hurt
RRP	$34.95	Music	Trevor Jones

    John Murdoch (Rufus Sewell) wakes up naked in a bathtub with no memory of how he got there and with a dead body in the room with him. A mysterious phone call from Dr Daniel Schreber (Kiefer Sutherland) warning him that he is in imminent danger leads to his taking flight, all the while trying to work out what is going on in the Dark City. Things are just not right - daylight never appears, Shell Beach seems impossible to get to, and everyone all falls asleep at midnight exactly. Mysterious pale men in black coats and hats are relentlessly pursuing John - why? So is a policeman, Inspector Frank Bumstead (William Hurt). And who is this woman who claims to be his wife, Emma (Jennifer Connelly)?

    Things slowly fall into place, kicked along later on in the piece by a huge piece of expository dialogue from Dr Schreber, but they never quite make sense, even by the end of the movie.

Video

    The transfer is presented at an aspect ratio of 2.35:1, 16x9 enhanced.

    The transfer was crystal clear and razor sharp at all times. Shadow detail was marvellous, and given that the great majority of this movie takes place in the shadows, this is critically important for this transfer. Absolutely no low level noise marred any of the dark scenes. This is an amazingly sharp and clean transfer, and one which I can imagine would look hideous on VHS because of all of the shadows and subsequent low level noise that these scenes would exhibit.

    The colours were almost all very drab browns and greens, except for a very few scenes with deliberate splashes of vivid colour which come as almost a shock to the system. Daylight, when it finally arrives, is an assault on the senses with its fully saturated and vivid colours.

    No MPEG artefacts were seen. Film-to-video artefacts were non-existent. Well, there were three very small patches of aliasing that were on the limit of visibility, but this was really trivial. There were pretty much no film artefacts. This is a very very clean transfer.

Audio

    The track is recorded quite loud, and almost made me turn down my system, but I listened through it at my normal listening level in the end.

    Dialogue was almost always easily understood in this movie, except for the odd word here and there which was a little overwhelmed by ambience.

    The audio was marginally out of sync early on in the movie, until approximately the middle of Chapter 3. Not by much, but enough to just be noticeable and irritating. I checked the R1 version of this DVD, and it exhibited the same problem, so it is most likely an ADR issue. This was a real shame, as this audio transfer was reference quality in every other way. Fortunately, there are very little in the way of close-ups during this part of the movie which would have made the problem more noticeable.

    The musical score was written by Trevor Jones. It is continuously present, ominously beating in the background, aggressively involving you in the on-screen action.

     The surround channels were continuously and aggressively used for ambience, music and special effects. This is the most highly enveloping soundtrack that I have ever heard, and is a wonderful experience to listen to. This soundtrack used ambient sound and music perfectly, enveloping you in the movie experience without ever distracting you away from the screen and to a specific speaker.

    The .1 channel was in continuous use for music and ambience. It was marvellously integrated into the overall soundtrack.

    This really is a marvellous soundtrack once you get past the marginally out-of-sync audio early on, and a superb example of what can be done with ambience and 5.1 sound.

Menu

Theatrical Trailer

Featurette - Untitled

Cast & Crew Interviews

Cast Biographies

    The video quality is flawless, and is reference quality.

    The audio quality is marvellous, with an omnipresent aggressively-enveloping soundtrack marred only by a marginal sync problem early on.

    The extras are standard Roadshow Home Entertainment fare, and way below what is present on the R1 version of this disc. But then, it's a lot cheaper, and the transfer quality is marginally better.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Michael Demtschyna
25th February 1999