>Dark City's aesthetic and story-telling style made it one of the most impactful movies I've ever seen. You are in the dark most of the movie, both in aesthetic of the film and metaphorically in the sense that you don't know what is going on, but discover it slowly, and along the way you are lead to reach premature conclusions that turn out later to be false.
I'll add that if you haven't seen Dark City and are going to watch it, you must seek out the director's cut. The theatrical cut basically ruins the plot up front assuming the audience won't get it and it changes the film dramatically.
?? I saw it in the theater when it opened. nothing was ruined. maybe there is a second cut I'm unaware of. Certainly the cut Roger Ebert gave 4/4 stars, which is the original theatrical cut, isn't the one with spoilers
"A director's cut of Dark City was officially released on DVD and Blu-ray Disc on 29 July 2008. The director's cut removes the opening narration, which Proyas felt explained too much of the plot, and includes approximately eleven minutes of additional footage, most of which extends scenes already present in the theatrical release with additional establishing shots and dialogue."
I originally saw the director's cut, then went back and watched a video with the opening narration. I felt that my viewing of the movie was improved having seen it originally without.
Here is an interview with director Alex Proyas where he explicitly discusses the removal of the opening narration [1]:
BLAKE: What is the biggest difference between it and the original?
ALEX PROYAS: The general pace of the movie is quite different. The director’s cut more or less is the version I had originally sent out when I was first testing the movie. We had problems in testing and it’s why the studio had us add in the voice overs, which I thought was rubbish really! My instinct then was when something wasn’t playing right to speed it up and I’ve never been happy with that, so this version is back to a more leisurely and thoughtful pace it was meant to be. The voice over from the beginning is gone of course. There is also a few scenes added back that were ditched that I think are perfectly good scenes and I have no idea why we dropped them then.
I'll add that if you haven't seen Dark City and are going to watch it, you must seek out the director's cut. The theatrical cut basically ruins the plot up front assuming the audience won't get it and it changes the film dramatically.