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Parents' Guide to

Dark City

By Charles Cassady Jr., Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 16+

Mind-stretching, futuristic sci-fi can get gory.

Movie R 1998 103 minutes
Dark City Poster Image

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Community Reviews

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age 9+

Based on 1 parent review

BiG_Daddy
BiG_Daddy Parent of 18+-year-old
April 22, 2016
age 9+

Nice movie

I think it's fine for a responsible child.

This title has:

Great messages
Great role models
See all 1 parent review

What's the Story?

As with Blade Runner, DARK CITY exists in versions both with and without opening narration to cue the viewer on what in the world (or out of this world) is going on. In a nameless city of endless night, John Murdoch (Rufus Sewell) awakens in bloody bathtub water in a seedy hotel room, where it appears he's just committed the latest in a string of murders of prostitutes. But he has no memory, just a cryptic phone message from sinister Dr. Schreber (Keifer Sutherland) to sustain him as the police close in. It seems that the city is secretly controlled by "the strangers," a telepathic army of gaunt, sunlight-shunning Men in Black, who manipulate memories and cityscapes, constantly altering the city in experiments on the human race. But John Murdoch mystifies them because he seems immune to their control. Thus, he becomes a target of the strangers.

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say (1 ):
Kids say (3 ):

The way Dark City fuses science fiction with classic film-noir detective imagery and Kafka-esque fantasy-allegory is stylish and boldly visionary. It's definitely not your straightforward actioner of alien abduction. When outstanding computer-graphics effects show the Gotham-like city sprouting and growing out of the ground, it's not just f/x eye candy, it's key to the plot -- a concept rather similar to The Matrix ("reality" is a sham, manipulated by hostile forces) but wrapped up neatly, in one movie, not three, and without distracting kung-fu battles as a metaphor for the human spirit.

In fact, underneath its moody, cosmic-gothic ambiance, Dark City is unusually optimistic in suggesting that Earth people have something inherently precious, an inner grace that would baffle and defeat even creatures as super-powered as the strangers. One more unusual and praiseworthy touch: the script avoids swear words altogether. With a premise as far-out as this one, profanity would hardly have brought in "realism."

Talk to Your Kids About ...

  • Families can talk about the motivations and actions of "the strangers." The movie never tells us how the Dark City came to be created or humans arrived there. Ask kids if they don't mind that such details are left to the imagination. Do they like this cerebral head trip as much as the more action-focused The Matrix or not, and why?

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