Dark City
New Line Cinema | Release Date: February 20, 1998 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
66
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 23 Critic Reviews
Positive:
13
Mixed:
9
Negative:
1
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Washington PostStephen Hunter
If you don't fall in love with it, you've probably never fallen in love with a movie, and never will. Read full review
100
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
A great visionary achievement, a film so original and exciting, it stirred my imagination like "Metropolis" and "2001: A Space Odyssey." Read full review
100
TimeRichard Corliss
It is as cool and distant as the planet the Strangers come from. But, Lord, is Dark City a wonder to see. [2 March 1998]
90
NewsweekAndrea C. Basora
Proyas floods the screen with cinematic and literary references ranging from Murnau and Lang to Kafka and Orwell, creating a unique yet utterly convincing world. Read full review
90
New Times (L.A.)Andy Klein
Full of provocative concepts, but, like most films that attack such metaphysical concerns head-on, things have become a tad too jumbled by the end to be altogether satisfying. It's a problem built into the subject matter...This all said, Dark City is immensely entertaining, as well as visually dazzling. Read full review
90
Washington PostRita Kempley
Obliged to go from lost soul to demigod, Sewell's performance is as fascinating as Proyas's mystical vision. Read full review
88
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
Dark City has as stunning a visual texture as that of any movie that I've seen...Visually, this film isn't just impressive, it's a tour de force. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneMichael Wilmington
Proyas' movie lacks a truly rich or compelling story -- although the city secret is certainly a rich and compelling idea. All too often, Dark City seems a great production design in search of a movie, an ultimate modern film noir pastiche, in which the images are so strong they overpower the drama. [27 Feb 1998]
75
USA TodayMarshall Fine
Fascinating, visionary filmmaking. With its amber-tinged palette and its distinctively dystopian view of life, it may be the most unique-looking film we've seen in ages...[but] defies logic and makes frightening and unexpected leaps. Read full review
75
Christian Science MonitorDavid Sterritt
The story is dark and often violent, but it's told with a remarkable sense of visual energy and imagination. Read full review
70
The New York TimesStephen Holden
So relentlessly trippy in a fun-house sort of way that it could very easily inspire a daredevil cult of moviegoers who go back again and again to experience its mind-bending twists and turns. Although its story doesn't add up when you analyze it afterward, the movie does take you on a visually arresting ride that offers many unsettling surprises right up to a sentimental sunburst of an ending that has a paranoid undertone. Read full review
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam Lacey
An almost really good movie...risks leaving the viewer feeling like one of the bewildered automatons that move through the plots. Read full review
63
San Francisco ExaminerWalter Addiego
It's full of visual flash, and can be enjoyed as a giddy ride, but you would waste your time trying to puzzle out the nuances of the story. Read full review
60
L.A. WeeklyManohla Dargis
[Proyas] hasn't yet learned how to enliven his characters as fully as his sets. Part of this is structural (somnolence is built into the script), but the greater fault lies with Proyas' direction of his performers, most of whom deliver their lines in a strangulated whisper. Read full review
60
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
It's all about the amazing look, cobbled together from an astonishingly evocative range of sources: "Nosferatu" and "Mad Love," "Brazil" and "Metropolis," a haunted mosaic of bits and pieces of movie memories. Read full review
60
Film ThreatAnthony Miele
Hurt and Sewell are both quite believable as their respective characters, while Sutherland's performance is lacking in more than a few catagories. Read full review
60
The New YorkerSarah Kerr
Perhaps too much attention to special effects. Read full review
58
Entertainment WeeklyTy Burr
It's a little short on coherence and long on comic-book sensationalism -- dig the hokey, climactic Battle of the Minds between the hero and a cadaverous Mr. Big -- but there's no denying the nightmarish pull of the film's aesthetic. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChroniclePeter Stack
Dark City grabs your eyeballs and squeezes. Read full review
50
VarietyTodd McCarthy
What they have done is taken a few second-hand ideas from noir and speculative fiction and mixed them in occasionally striking ways, even if, in the end, the result isn't all that much fun. Read full review
50
Austin ChronicleMarc Savlov
Looks like a million bucks (or rather, a million bucks gone to compost), but at its dark heart it's a tedious, bewildering affair, lovely to look at but with all the substance of a dissipating dream. Read full review
40
Los Angeles TimesJohn Anderson
Proyas is trying simultaneously to create a pure thriller and sci-fi nightmare along with his tongue-in-cheek critique of artifice. And this doesn't work out quite so well. Read full review
20
Chicago ReaderLisa Alspector
One reason this production-design vehicle is so incredibly boring is that the characters keep having to explain the plot to one another. Read full review
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