Review for Dark City: Director's Cut

Introduction

It’s time for another quickie Blu-ray upgrade review. There’s very little more that I can say about one of my favourite films, especially one that I have reviewed three times already on this site in my search for the ideal version. I started off with the UK DVD release, a pitiful letterbox Dolby Stereo affair that failed to do the film justice in any sense or form. I then went and imported the US DVD, older than the UK release, but anamorphic, with Surround Sound, and extra features. Not too long after in 2008, the Director’s Cut was released in the UK, on both DVD and the nascent Blu-ray format, and my only option at the time was the DVD release. By the time I finally got Blu-ray-ed up, the UK Blu-ray was OOP, and I wound up importing this Blu-ray release from Australia. It too is OOP now that I’ve finally got around to watching the film. The real question is whether my hunt for the perfect Dark City home video experience is finally over...


An amnesiac, John Murdock wakes up in a bath in a hotel room, totally disoriented with blood dripping from his forehead. He searches his belongings for some clue to his identity, but all he finds is a postcard from Shell Beach. To his horror, he finds the mutilated body of a girl in the bedroom. He then receives a phone call from a stranger, warning him to leave as he is being pursued. He escapes from a mysterious group of strangers, and from there he begins to sort out the details of his life. His problems are only just beginning, as he learns that he is wanted for a series of murders in the vein of the dead girl he had left behind. He is estranged from a wife, Emma who may have triggered this series of violent attacks by cheating on him. But as he learns more of his past and the city in which he dwells, more and more mysteries confront him. Just who are the Strangers who pursue him? Why can't anyone leave the city, or recall leaving the city? Why is it always dark? And what happens at midnight?


Here’s a couple of links to my reviews of the US Theatrical release, and the UK Director’s Cut, more appropriate than you’d think, as both the discs are replicated on this Blu-ray. I go into more detail about both versions of the film there.

Dark City
Dark City: Director’s Cut

For the purposes of this review, I re-watched the Director’s Cut only.

Picture

So here’s the thing. The Director’s Cut differs from the Theatrical Cut not merely by the addition of a few extra scenes, it is a radically different film in terms of the edit, audio, and scene length and placement, and you can’t create that experience through seamless branching as with many other two-version Blu-rays. You actually have both films pressed separately onto this dual layer Blu-ray, over 3½ hours of video, multiple audio streams, and extra features. Something’s gotta give...


That something is the video quality, although it must be stated that the Blu-ray once again offers a revelatory experience compared to the DVD. It’s presented at 2.35:1 widescreen 1080p, and the first thing that strikes you is that you really can see Dark City for once. Certainly on the VHS and the first UK DVD, and even on the anamorphic discs, this film’s dark production design, extensive use of shadow and low light visuals, really struggles to pop and stand out. But on Blu-ray the film becomes a lush, vibrant, tangible experience, with rich detail levels, and a wonderful sense of depth and dimension to the shadows and darkness on screen. This time I was really enchanted by the set and costume design, and you really can see the effort that the filmmakers put into making the world of Dark City. Best of all, I failed to spot any digital banding, my first fear when it comes to films with such a dark palette.


However, Dark City doesn’t look as good as I’ve come to expect films in high definition to look. While it is very much an improvement on the DVDs, there is still an overall softness to it that you can’t escape, and you’d hope for more detail, especially when it comes to faces and skin tones. There are some moments in the film where there’s even some slight ghosting, Jennifer Connolly’s face when she’s first interviewed by Bumstead in one such moment. Some cite DNR as an issue on this release, but I feel having the two versions of the film on one disc is a more significant issue.

Sound

No complaints about the audio though, as it comes in a full-throated DTS-HD MA 7.1 Surround Sound roar, with optional English SDH subtitles. It’s an effective and immersive surround track, with great action, great music, and the dialogue is clear throughout. This is a film that relies heavily on sound design to enhance the atmosphere of its visuals, and the surround track on this disc does it justice.

Extras

Insert the disc, and you have the choice of Director’s Cut or Theatrical Cut, and you then get taken to the animated menus. The Director’s Cut comes with the extras from the DC disc, while the Theatrical Cut offers the US disc’s extras. That means you get five commentaries in total for both films, including two from Roger Ebert. Here’s a quick listing...


Director’s Cut

There are three commentaries on this film.

The first is from director Alex Proyas, and it's a new commentary for the Director's Cut. It's pretty scene specific, with him pointing out the new scenes and changes, as well as commenting on the annoyances of test screenings and studio interference.

The second is from critic Roger Ebert who has recorded a new commentary for the Director's Cut, different from the one he recorded on the original Region 1 disc.

Finally, there is the screenwriters' commentary featuring David Goyer and Lem Dobbs.


The Production Gallery offers 80 images to page through.

There are three documentaries on this disc, although the Play All option renders them as one large documentary.

The Introduction By Alex Proyas lasts 5 minutes, although is more an introduction by Roger Ebert and Alex Proyas, than Proyas alone.

Memories of Shell Beach lasts 44 minutes, and is the obligatory making of documentary, albeit a retrospective one looking back ten years after the fact.


Architecture of Dreams lasts 34 minutes, and is a collection of video essays, from contributors like Lem Dobbs, Roger Ebert, Alex Proyas, as well as academics like Vivian Sobchack and Dana Polan who offer five differing examinations of the film.

Unlike the DVD, the commentaries aren’t subtitled here.

One extra exclusive to the Blu-ray Director’s Cut is the Director’s Cut fact track, pop-up screen notes that point out the differences from the Theatrical Cut and the odd point of trivia. There are a lot of differences.


Theatrical Cut

Two commentaries on this version of the film. First Roger Ebert offers a critic`s eye view of the film.

Then there is a Filmmaker`s commentary with director Alex Proyas, writers Lem Dobbs and David Goyer, director of photography Dariusz Wolski, and production designer Patrick Tatopolous..

The rest of the extras are just text-based stuff, 14 pages of a comparison to Metropolis, with an interesting review of that film by H. G. Wells, and a single page essay on the film by Neil Gaiman.

The theatrical trailer is on here, and other than the image gallery is the only extra feature in HD.

Conclusion

This is the same disc that was released both here and the US, albeit locked to Region B, but if you can find a version that you can play, it’s well worth getting. Dark City has aged really well, has become a classic sci-fi movie, delightfully referencing much that has come before, but creating so much that is new that it becomes a reference point of its own. I was blown away at seeing this film in as much detail and clarity and with such audio impact as I did when I first saw it in a London cinema way back in 1998. It looks and sounds amazing. But the thing is that it could look better (I wore glasses in 1998).


The Dark City Blu-ray came out in 2008, and back then they were really still figuring out how this HD stuff worked. Sometimes I think they still are, but back then those doing the authoring looked at that 50GB of disc real estate and opted for quantity, not quality. If the Director’s Cut (for that is the preferable version of the film) got another shot at an HD release, then I’d love for it to get a Blu-ray all to itself, let the video bitrate run as free as possible on a dual layer disc so that you could squeeze the last drop of detail out of the image, and get rid of that pesky ghosting and DNR. And then I would indeed sextuple dip for this film.