Thursday, July 31, 2008

by Ari

I picked up the newly released Dark City director's cut dvd, which is around 10 minutes longer and wisely cuts out the opening narration found in the theatrical version. The voiceover that opened the film gave away important information about the plot and characters, too much information for a story with such a powerful central mystery. The director's cut unravels like a classic noir with a bizarre, sci-fi twist. It's appropriately confusing until everything pieces itself together. There's more with William Hurt's Inspector Bumstead, an extended night club number with Jennifer Connelly (It sounds like they re-edited her actual voice back into the film) and some other small moments with minor characters. One could argue some of the extra lines and sequences are unnecessary, but there's no doubt the editing is smoother overall.

I have to admit it's difficult to separate myself from the original cut, but eventually I'll probably come back to this version. One thing I disliked: the Lucas-esque CGI additions to the finale with Murdoch and Mr. Book. Why touch the CG from the first edition? It's extremely distracting and completely unneeded. It looked beautiful the first time. Leave it.