FILM REVIEW OF ''THE ISLAND OF DOCTOR MOREAU" (1996)

Sitting through “Prophecy” director John Frankenheimer’s pretentious, half-baked, horror fantasy “The Island of Dr. Moreau,” (** out of ****) starring Oscar-winning actor Marlon Brando and Val Kilmer, may be enough to turn anybody into an animal.  Presumably, the financial success of genetic thrillers such as “Jurassic Park” and “Species” prompted producer Edward R. Pressmen to reanimate H.G. Wells’ literary classic for its third rendition.  Ironically, this deeply flawed but imaginatively updated version suffers a fate similar to that of the genetic mutants created by the titular villain on his remote island.

The movie opens on three plane crash survivors who have been adrift in the Java Sea for days.  Two of them are killed by a shark leaving our hero, Edward Douglas (David Thewlis of “Naked”), a United Nations peace negotiator.  Douglas awakens to the sight of a sailing vessel hovering over him.  He collapses from exhaustion and reawakens to find Montgomery (Val Kilmer of “Tombstone”) attending him.  Douglas is too weak to do anything more than swoon.  Eventually, the ship deposits them at an exotic island where the research center of Dr. Moreau is located.  Montgomery persuades Douglas to join him; on the basis that they have a telecommunications system on the island that Douglas can use to contact the UN.  As we soon learn, however, Montgomery is lying.  The island is actually the home and refuge of Dr. Moreau, a brilliant geneticist who was forced into seclusion due to his controversial experiments on animals.  Moreau has learned how to transform common animals into human beings, or almost human beings.

 Douglas finds himself trapped on the island, surrounded by Moreau’s beastly creations.  He tries to escape several times to no avail.  First, he stumbles in on an ungodly birth scene, and then finds himself in a half-man, half-animal zoo at an abandoned military airfield.  Finally, Douglas meets Moreau.  They argue about which way the scales of morality should tilt and dredge up Biblical passages to support their arguments.  Moreau tries to explain how his experiments will help mankind.  He reveals that he has discovered that the devil is a collection of genes.  Moreau means to sort out those bad genes and produce an ideal human.  He is even willing to accept a failure or two along the road to success, which accounts for the vast number of beast-men.  Moreau keeps these ugly creatures under his thumb by means of implants which he uses to shock them into paralysis.  Meanwhile, Montgomery keeps the creatures dazed and confused with narcotics.

The inventive but predictable Richard Stanley and Ron Hutchinson screenplay updates the 1896 Wells novel and does a good job of establishing the action in the 1990s.  The opening 40 minutes introduces audiences to everyone and everything they need to know about the plot.  Sadly, the script packs no surprises.  If you cannot figure out what’s going to happen from one moment to the next in the film then you must be on horse tranquilizers.  Suffice it to say, “Moreau” doesn’t qualify as a date movie, (unless you never want to see your date again).  Some of the gruesome looking creatures may even go on to inhabit the island of your dreams.  Stan Winston’s creature designs are impressive.  His mutants look as convincing as mutants could possibly look.  Sometimes, they are even nauseating.  Typically, they retain the basic shape of the animal from which they were mutated so they have a beastly looking head, hands and feet, while the rest of them is hidden beneath their apparel to conserve on costs.  The first grisly glimpse that Douglas gets is a multi-breasted beast mother siring an “E.T.” infant.  The other animals are a hideous collection of mutants with claw hands and snaggled teeth.  They gallery of beast men and women appears twice as grisly, gyrating their horrid bodies as Montgomery peddles narcotics to kill them happy. 

Marlon Brando treats moviegoers to another of his characteristically peculiar performances.  There is nothing ordinary about Brando’s brilliant but eccentric Dr. Moreau.  Brando stages a dramatic entrance, swathed in white garments under a pagoda-style hat, resembling a Japanese Kabuki actor in sunglasses.  He tolerates the steamy island heat and wears chalky make-up to preserve his delicate skin from the sun.  Metaphorically, this sun allergy relates somehow to Moreau’s moral infamy; he cannot stand up to the light of morality.  He appears like the great white hope in the camp of the beast men.  Brando adopts the same sissified voice that he used for his Fletcher Christian in the 1962 version of “Mutiny on the Bounty.”  He also never appears twice in the same wardrobe.  One scene finds him garbed like a nocturnal fridge raider while in another scene he appears bundled up like an Arab sultan.

A similar air of mystery surrounds Val Kilmer’s Montgomery.  Montgomery gravitates between moments of extreme clarity and apathetic zombie like drug dazes.  Either the script is purposefully vague or (more realistically) the editors sheared Kilmer’s performance to reduce the film’s running time to 90 minutes so they could squeeze in more showings and parlay a quick profit.  Ultimately, Montgomery assumes a Lucifer-like character in his apparent rivalry with Moreau.  Again, the script doesn’t clarify this part of the story.  Is Montgomery Moreau’s rival?  We never know for certain.

Audiences are meant to identify with the David Thewlis’ narrator.  Incidentally, Thewlis replaced actor Rob Morrow of CBS-TV’s “Northern Exposure.”  As Douglas, Thewlis is required to make his eyes bulge and to act in a manner that makes him appear ineffectually wimpy. The Stanley &  Hutchinson screenplay doesn’t allow Thewlis to cut the heroic profile that Michael York did in the 1977 version of “The Island of Doctor Moreau” with Burt Lancaster as the eponymous character.  The best that Thewlis can do is fire ill-aimed bullets at the rowdy beasts.

The trouble with this take on Wells classic is that movie audiences may find themselves frustrated because the only sympathetic character is a dud.  Thewlis does hold his own in his confrontations with Moreau as they argue about morality.  Moreau alleges that they has found evil and resolves to destroy it.  In destroying it, Moreau has recreated evil in his own warped image.  The atmospheric photography by William Fraker makes “Moreau” both fun and interesting to gaze at for long stretches.  Fraker lensed the action on location in sunny Australia.  In fact, “Moreau” looks as god as any movie that Frankenheimer has directed. The 66-year old director carved out his reputation back in the 1960s with classics such as “The Manchurian Candidate,” “Seven Days in May,” “Grand Prix,” and “Seconds.”  In his 1979 thriller “Prophecy,” Frankenheimer explored the theme of wildlife gone crazy because of polluted streams so he brings considerably artistry and some knowledge about the genetics in “Dr. Moreau.”

“The Island of Dr. Moreau” ranks as an ambitious but flawed horror fantasy.  Anybody who relishes Frankenheimer’s version of “Moreau” can hope that someday New Line Cinema will release a director’s cut that restores the lost parts of the film.  Indeed, an unrated director's cut was released, but it included on four extra minutes of footage. This well-made but routine epic concludes with Douglas moralizing about how Moreau’s island serves as a microcosm of the world and that we must all go in fear of man’s unstable nature.  The only thing that audiences can really go in fear of is the sequel that might lie over the horizon.  Troubled plagued the production from start to finish. Kilmer switched characters from Douglas to Montgomery.  Reportedly Kilmer--who was enduring a divorce at the time--clashed with director Richard Stanley.  Kilmer's clout was such that Stanley was gone and Frankenheimer took over the helm.  Frankenheimer experienced similar problems with Kilmer as well as Brando.

FILM REVIEW OF "GREEN LANTERN" (2011)

My favorite cinematic adaptations of costume-clad, comic-book, crime-fighters vary. The Christopher Reeve “Superman” (1978) tops my list followed by its sequel “Superman II” (1980), then “Iron Man” (2008), “Spider-man” (2002), “Batman Begins” (2005), “The Dark Knight” (2008), “X-Men” (2000), “X2” (2003), “Fantastic Four” (2005), and “X-Men: First Class” (2011). Interestingly, Marvel Comics has enjoyed greater success with their cinematic adaptations than their DC rivals. Since I grew up perusing DC Comics, I have a soft spot for DC heroes and their classic simplicity compared with more sophisticated but fascinating origins of the Marvel Comics mutants. Each of these films exhibits ambitious artistry and sets the gold standard for heroes, villains, and stories. Sure, the Michael Keaton “Batman” movies were entertaining, but “Batman” didn’t reach the gold standard until Christopher Nolan took over the helm from quirky Tim Burton and middle-of-the-road Joel Schumacher. Typically, a great costume-clad, comic-book, crime-fighter flick boasts the illusion of realism despite its outlandish, larger-than-life quality. The hero should be vulnerable without being weak. Meaning, he, she, or it should have an Achilles’ heel. Indeed, there should be a reasonable chance that they could die if all the planets and/or circumstances could align for such a contingency. Furthermore, the villains should not only threaten the hero and the heroine but also they should threaten people’s lives. Again, a reasonable chance should exist that the villains could destroy Earth, the universe, etc. Spectacular production values, suspenseful and surprising scripting, sympathetic heroes, menacing villains, and an impressive arena for them to display their powers contribute to making great costume-clad, comic-book, crime-fighting films.

“GoldenEye” director Martin Campbell’s “Green Lantern” (*** out of ****) qualifies as a good costume-clad, comic-book, crime-fighter flick. No, it doesn’t surpass any of those aforementioned epics. Nonetheless, “Green Lantern” is worth-watching, at least once, even in 3-D. Twice wouldn’t be intolerable for the 2-D version. Thrice might be pushing it. Happily, this lavish, $200-million, FX-fueled, DC entry in the summer crime-fighter sweepstakes neither takes itself too seriously nor wears out its welcome at 114 minutes. This super hero spectacle about a guy-in-a-green suit who can hurl himself through air and space is entertaining but lightweight fare. Scenarists Greg Berlanti of “Dawson’s Creek,” Michael Green of “Smallville,” and “Harry Potter and the Order of the Golden Phoenix” scribes Marc Guggenheim and Michael Goldenberg pour their considerable creativity into the plot. They keep the action and characters lively enough while delivering a solid origins story. Prepare yourself for a glut of exposition that bristles with more than enough details to keep you attentive. The sympathetic Ryan Reynolds hero shows strong potential, but neither Blake Lively nor he get a chance to generate much romantic sizzle in this PG-13 outing. The aliens and the other worlds make the grade in terms of visual splendor. Watching the scenes featuring aliens reminded me of the original “Star Wars.” Despite the presence of oddball aliens with radically different color scheme complexions, “Green Lantern” never slips into parody. Campbell maintains a fine balance between the dramatic and comedic elements when his writers and he aren’t immersing us with expository background information about Green Lantern mythology.

For the record, this DC Comics hero debuted July 1940 in “All-American Comics.” Long before the Earth was created, the immortal Guardians of the Universe supervised an intergalactic police force known as the Green Lantern Corps. These Guardians resemble those squat, bubble-headed football dolls because they are so diminutive, but they sit up high on lofty towers on the planet Oa. These Guardians have divided the galaxy into 3,600 sectors, with one Green Lantern per sector. The Green Lanterns are like Texas Rangers. Anyway, a Green Lantern wears an emerald green ring. This jaded jewelry provides them with powers limited only by their imagination. If there is one quality above all that a first-class Green Lantern must possess, he, she or it must lack fear. The first incarnation of the "Green Lantern" character lasted until 1949. In those days, before DC turn over the comic in a merger, the “Green Lantern” was railroad engineer Alan Scott. When DC rebooted “Green Lantern” in 1949, he became daredevil test-pilot Hal Jordan. Although the Alan Scott/Green Lantern character sounds more interesting, Campbell and his scribes have appropriated the Hal Jordan hero. Essentially, they have replicated Hal’s origins as the guy-in-green. Our hero receives his status and power as a Green Lantern when a dying alien, purple-faced Abin Sur of Sector 2814 (Temuera Morrison of “Vertical Limit”), crashes on Earth after battling Parallax. Abin Sur’s Green Lantern ring seeks out Hal. Apparently, this ring is drawn only to the individual that it deems worthy of wearing it. When “Green Lantern” opens, a former Guardian who has turned into a super villain called Parallax has escaped, fatally wounded Abin Sur, and sets out to ultimately destroy Earth and later the Guardians using fear as its chief weapon.

Naturally, Ferris Aircraft test pilot Hal Jordan (Ryan Reynolds of "Buried") is flabbergasted when the ring chooses him. As it turns out, Hal is the first human to be a Green Lantern, and his pointy-eared mentor Thaal Sinestro (Mark Strong of “Stardust”) lacks confidence in him. Moreover, Hal has little confidence in himself, but he proves himself an excellent if not unorthodox test pilot. During an early scene, Hal out-flies two unmanned aircraft by flying above their altitude. This recklessness nearly killed him, but he beat the two jets. In this respect, "Green Lantern" recalls a similar scene from "Iron Man." Meanwhile, milquetoast biology professor Hector Hammond (Peter Sarsgaard of “Boys Don’t Cry”), is called in to conduct an autopsy on Abin Sur's remains. During the autopsy, Hammond is infected by some of the DNA that Parallax left in Sur’s corpse. Parallax is the villain in "Green Lantern." Suffice to say, Parallax was a Guardian of the Universe who was lured away from the green force of will-power to the yellow force of fear. Parallax killed Abin Sur, and the soul-sucking Parallax wants to wipe out the ancient Guardians and Earth. Consequently, Hector acquires both Parallax's telepathic as well as telekinetic powers, but it costs him his sanity. Eventually, Hal and Hector battle over childhood sweetheart Carol Ferris (Blake Lively of “The Town”) who recognizes Hal even when he wears green. The confrontation at the Ferris Aircraft party when nerdy Hector tries to kill his smug father, U.S. Senator Robert Hammond (Tim Robbins), is both amusing and suspenseful.

The “Green Lantern” villains flaw the movie. Mind you, the villains do present a clear and present danger to Hal Jordan. Nevertheless, they appeared to have been hatched from the same galaxy that yielded Tim Burton’s “Mars Attacks.” Indeed, the villains are either hideously deformed mutants or a monstrous supernatural extraterrestrial force that resembles a creature with the human skull and the vaporous body of a shape-shifting octopus. In other words, Parallax amounts to nothing more than CGI hokum. The skull-faced octopus might as well have been a Japanese monster puppet for all the evil that it conjures up. Having great villains makes the difference between a great costume-clad, comic-book, crime-fighter flick and a good costume-clad, comic-book, crime-fighter flick. “Green Lantern” comes up short on villainy. The villains emerge as either blow-hards or half-wits. As one of the villains, Sarsgaard is more fun to watch before his head swells up and he looks like a pigmy with skin disease. Nevertheless, the way that Hal defeats Parallax is not only foreshadowed but also fun. If you wait around patiently during the end credits, you can see who emerges as the next villain for Hal Jordan to fight in the inevitable "Green Lantern" sequel.

FILM REVIEW OF ''MEGA PIRANHA'' (2010)

“Mega Piranha” (*** out of ****) is another one of those hilarious knock-off epics from Asylum Studios. Of course, these legendary cheese-meisters were exploiting French director Alexandre Aja's big studio 3-D remake of Joe Dante's “Piranha,” but writer & director Eric Forsberg has taken the concept far beyond the outrageous. Mind you, nothing about this outlandish opus is either remotely plausible or frightening. Indeed, not only Asylum has delivered a derivative creature feature with enough cinematic sophistication to make the grade as a horror parody, but it has also managed to provide moments of comic brilliance that surpass the films that it mocks. The setting, the subject matter, and the genre are also reminiscent of the "Anaconda" franchise and its hokey sequels. Okay, the computer-generated piranha look pretty goofy, but these piranha are supposed to look spurious. Only the most gullible will suffer traumatic after-effects when they bathe alone in a tub. In another one of those hideous scientific experiments gone awry, scientists have created a strain of piranha that mutate into an indestructible predators that double in size and threaten world safety. Forsberg's genius, however, is the way that his actors and he maintain a straight face throughout with moments of over-the-top hilarity that stand out all the more because those moments are so incredibly illogical. These moments are comparable to a Marx Brothers farce because they are so broadly anarchic. Specifically, these moments are reminiscent of Groucho's grease paint mustache that always infuriated literal-headed studio heads because they didn't grasp the comic incongruity of an obviously ersatz mustache when they felt that real one could have been grown.

“Mega Piranha” opens like the classic movie “Jaws” with a gal who goes skinny dipping with her boyfriend. No sooner do they hit the muddy Orinoco River than ravenous piranha hit them. Along come a U.S. diplomat, Ambassador Arnold Regis (Eric Forsberg of “Alien Abduction"), and a Venezuela politician on a boat with a couple of big-breasted, bikini-clad babes. While they were discussing politics, the toothsome fish attack, gnaw holes in the hull and make a feast out of them. Just to emphasis how little that he takes himself seriously, Forsberg himself is an early victim of the piranha. U.S. Secretary Grady (Barry Williams of “The Brady Bunch”) alerts buff Special Forces operative Jason Fitch (Paul Logan of “Cannibal Taboo”) by web cam. According to Grady, Venezuelan Junta Commander Colonel Antonio Diaz (David Labiosa of “The Entity”) believes that terrorists blew up the politicians. Furthermore, the CIA fear the incident may spark an anti-American military coup. This is Forsberg mimicking other films and establishing a somber tone, like this is a serious horror opus. “I need you to check out that river bottom and tell me what really happened before we have another Afghanistan on our hands.” Fitch catches a commercial flight to Venezuela. Before Fitch arrives, UCLA genetics researcher, Dr. Sarah Monroe (plump pop vocalist Tiffany), wildlife biologist Eli Gordon (Jesse Daly of “Another Gay Movie”), and microbiologist Brian Huggins (Jude Gerard Prest of “Teen Vamp") conduct their own investigation and uncover the ugly truth. Piranha are growing at an exponential rate, and they are scheduled to triple their size in 36 hours. Indeed, disaster looms for everybody. Unlike a Troma studios parody, "Mega Piranha" lives up to its hype. These piranha get really gigantic.

When our highly-decorated hero lands in Venezuela, a desperate Monroe accosts Fitch at the airport and warns him that Diaz is close-minded and paranoid. Fitch discovers this fact for himself later. Meantime, she explains that she had been conducting hydro-biological experiments. Basically, this means that Monroe and her colleagues have been escalating the size of the local food supply by genetically re-designing species of marine life to make them more robust. She was involved specifically with piranha. What? Why create bigger, meaner piranha? This is another of those brilliant moments deliver with a straight face. Who in their right mind would breed bigger, badder piranha!? Predictably, those carnivorous piranha escaped captivity and began breeding. Monroe hands him a fragment of the boat hull. Fitch can find no trace of explosives in the sample. Diaz takes Fitch for a chopper ride over area where the boat sank, but he refuses to let him investigate. Moreover, Diaz confines Fitch to the base. A stealthy Fitch slips off the base and gets a local to take him up river. Donning scuba gear, Fitch plunges into the river and swims up to the Arawak Indian Dam in an Orinoco Inlet where he encounters the pugnacious piranha. At first, he slashes at them with his knife. In a shrewd bit of foreshadowing, writer & director Eric Forsberg sets up the ending as the omnivorous piranha converge on the wounded fish and maul it. Fitch wades ashore. A single piranha pursues him with a vengeance. The fish lunges at him, and he stabs it repeatedly until it dies. Fitch slams the dead flesh-eater on Diaz’s desk and the colonel cannot believe his eyes.

The scientists inspect Fitch’s specimen and learn it possesses two hearts, triple-thick skin and is an hermaphrodite! Meaning, it can replicate by itself. Since the piranha are holed up behind a natural dam, Higgins recommends they drain the estuary before the fish grow large enough to escape. Instead, the villainous Diaz launches a helicopter assault. They blast the bejesus out of the river, but the fish survive. Of course, Diaz doesn’t realize the error of his ways. All he knows is the secretive scientists are responsible so he arrests them. He tortures poor Dr. Huggins. Meanwhile, the resilient piranha really begin to grow. Fitch helps Monroe and her associates escape. However, the piranha are heading up river by leaps and bounds. The scientists believe the fish cannot enter the ocean because piranha are fresh-water inhabitants and salt water will kill them. Imagine their surprise when the piranha ignore this genetic trait. Grady arranges for a destroyer to blast the fish. Predictably, the piranha survive the bombardment, gobble the ship, and enter the ocean. Now, the piranha are heading for Miami and Grady dispatches a submarine to torpedo them.

Scenes of piranha leaping out of the sea and smashing into buildings like suicide bombers with explosive crashes will make you laugh until your ribs hurt. The scene where Fitch is on his back, cycling his legs in the air so that his boots strike piranha as they pounce on him makes this alone worth watching. Make no mistake, these fish make formidable fiends, and Colonel Diaz amounts to a melodramatic villain. Nevertheless, the treacherous Diaz gets his just deserts. Another way of putting it is he becomes a just dessert for the fish. Before this 93-minute schlock concludes with its happy ending, these gluttonous fish gnaw up a U.S. Navy destroyer, an Ohio Class submarine--the U.S.S. Florida, and a helicopter hovering over the ocean! This in itself is reminiscent of director Enzo G. Castellari's "Jaws" rip-off "The Last Shark" (1981), aka "Great White," with Vic Morrow. Shots of these piranha sailing over the heads of our heroes is another reason to chuckle. If you’re going to take an idea to the absolute maximum, you must trash every modicum of credibility, and the Asylum people have done with grand gusto. Every character constitutes a hopeless stereotype, but Forsberg never lets the action loiter. He relies on swift editing and the equivalent of jump cutting. The imagery of a school of piranha bounding down river like championship jumping horses is side-splitting. Former "Brady Bunch" trouper, Barry Williams anchors the action with his pragmatic performance. Unlike sci-fi mutant movies of the 1950s that justified themselves as cautionary tales about science run amok, “Meg Piranha” harbors no such pretensions. This film is fun for fun’s sake. The computer-generated imagery won't receive any Oscars, but it is adequate enough for this drivel. Viewers who demand credibility should probably forego this half-baked fish yarn. “Mega Piranha” qualifies as so bad that it’s good!

FILM REVIEW OF ''DARK CITY' (1998)

Austrian novelist Franz Kafka would probably applaud everything but the aliens and the ending in “The Crow” director Alex Proyas’ “Dark City.” This gloomy but hopeful science-fiction murder-mystery features Rufus Sewell, Jennifer Connelly, William Hurt and Kiefer Sutherland. Best when only gazed at, “Dark City” relies more on its hypnotic visuals than its shallow, predictable script.

Comparatively, “Dark City” resembles Orson Welles’ 1963 classic “The Trial,” based on the Kafka novel. An innocent man (Anthony Perkins) awakens one morning to find himself accused of an unknown crime that he didn’t commit in what resembles a police state. Kafka serves merely as an aesthetic departure point for “Dark City.” After establishing its metaphorical bond with Kafka, “Dark City” degenerates into a humdrum, happy-ending melodrama of the comic book variety.

Despite its stunning technical virtuosity, “Dark City” (** out of ****) frustrates anyone who scrutinizes its eye-popping style for a modicum of substance. Proyas’ cinematic effort delivers few fresh ideas with its contrived, low-brow saga about humanity, individuality and alien mind control. Worse, most of the ideas and imagery cobbled together in this predictable futuristic opus came from more entertaining movies. Suffice to say, “Dark City” contains more kaka than Kafka.

“Dark City” unravels as a pallid yarn about paranoia. Rufus Sewell of “Dangerous Beauty” impersonates a nondescript nobody who emerges as the savior of Proyas’ brooding potboiler. Waking up in a dingy bathtub in a strange hotel, John Murdoch (Sewell) finds blood leaking from his forehead. Afflicted with amnesia, he stumbles onto the naked corpse of a murdered hooker. No sooner has Murdoch gathered his wits than he gets a sudden phone call from creepy Dr. Schreber (Kiefer Sutherland of “Young Guns”). Murdoch learns that he is supposed to be a serial killer of prostitutes. Eluding an ominous gang of knife-wielding fiends, our hero embarks on a search for his identity.

Murdoch confronts a grave new world where the sun never shines. Everything grinds to a spooky halt every night at midnight. A bizarre cabal of aliens is secretly experimenting with humans. They want to see how people react to a variety of different circumstances. They change the memories of these poor humans as if their minds were Rubik’s cubes. These vaguely understood characters are called ‘Strangers.’ This pale, cadaverous mob dresses alike in long, black leather coats and dark hats to cover their white cue ball heads. Not only does sunlight irritate them, but they also abhor moisture.

We’re told by the mad scientist narrator that the ‘Strangers’ are as old as time. They travel great distances by levitation. Endowed with the power to alter physical reality by a telepathic process called ‘tuning,’ these dour ‘Strangers’ can create doors in walls where no portals existed. Visually, their power is depicted as a slinky-like series of transparent concentric circles rippling out from the center of their foreheads. Oddly enough, these ‘Strangers’ are dying. All men and one boy, they are convinced that their survival lies in mankind. Before they can achieve their goal, these ‘Strangers’ must deduce what makes mankind ‘human.’ The ‘Strangers’ have abducted humans and taken them to a world they have created to figure out what makes mankind tick.

“Dark City” has a drab, monolithic plot with several inherent theatrical flaws.

First, the filmmakers provide less than sensational heroics in the various skirmishes between the hero and the villains. “Dark City” fails to thrill because the leads are never in jeopardy. Moreover, when characters find themselves in danger, the challenge has a muted quality. The climactic ‘tuning’ battle between Mr. Book (Ian Richardson of “Man of La Mancha”) and Murdoch lacks a credible quotient of violence. Second, too many characters clutter up the film! Inspector Frank Bumstead, a supporting character who is clearly more interesting than Murdoch, should have been the hero. Further, the moviemakers should have combined Bumstead’s role with the insane victim cop, Eddie Walenski (Colin Friels of “Darkman”). Their synthesized characters would have made a more exciting hero. Third, we’re never told how the hero acquired his ability to ‘tune.’ This is a pretty serious flaw because ‘tuning’ makes Murdock equal to his enemies. Worse, Dr. Schreber has no idea either, and he is the guy who concocted the stuff that he injects into the foreheads of the human with his baroque syringes. Fourth, “Dark City” suffers because the filmmakers refuse to tell us enough about these enigmatic ‘Strangers.’ They are a cryptic bunch that occupies space somewhere between Uncle Fester of “The Adams Family” and Clive Barker’s Pin-Head.

William Hurt of “The Big Chill” appears as a hard-boiled, accordion-playing detective determined to capture Murdoch. Wasted in a subordinate role, Hurt has little chance to develop anything more than a sketchy character. While it’s always a pleasure to watch the eloquent Hurt, his cop character receives deplorable treatment. “Dark City” consigns sexy Jennifer Connelly to the cosmetic role of the woman-in-distress. Murdoch eventually gets around to saving her from the clutches of the Strangers near the end of the movie. Connelly and Sewell generate few sparks as lovers. She spends most of her screen time doing unremarkable things.

Droopy-eyed Kiefer Sutherland chews the scenery as a stereotypical Dr. Moreau geneticist with everything but a Peter Lorre sneer. He sports quirky clothes, adopts an accent and shuffles rather than walks. As one of the movie’s chief characters, Dr. Schreber strikes neither a villainous nor heroic posture. He mixes and matches genes in lab test tubes to draft new identities and memories. Proyas and his scenarists cannot figure out whether audiences should like or loathe him. Proyas generates an air of mystery, but this genre has been so overdone that “Dark City” illuminates nothing more than its own shortcomings. If Dungeons and Dragons entertain you, “Dark City” may mesmerize you.