From Cult To Classic
The most underrated genre flicks of the 1990s.
      by David Rosiak

John Murdoch, trapped in a stylistic Dark City.

1998's Dark City played in quite a few theaters, but few people actually saw it. Those who did caught a rare vision of one of the most fully realized films in years. Like Blade Runner, the film mixes noir with science fiction, wrapping a detective story around the myth of creation. Its hero is John Murdoch (a sad-eyed Rufus Sewell), who, like so many science fiction heroes before him, awakens to find his memory shattered. Pursued by a group of supernatural specters known only as The Strangers, Murdoch roams a fiercely imagined cityscape that is an equal mix of Metropolis, Brazil, and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. And though its visuals evoke comic book qualities, this is no film for teenagers or comic book fans, despite its marketing to the contrary. The visuals here match the well-crafted story, one that twists nicely until the very end. One year later, it was dumbed down, remade, action-ed up, and given a new title: The Matrix, a film that is miles behind its predecessor.

This move towards smart sci-fi had been prefigured one year before with 1997's Gattaca, an ideological sci-fi thriller about a man who stands up to fight a system that, through genetic manipulation, allows parents to handpick perfect children. Hawke's turn as an "In-Valid," one of the few not born to perfection, is a tricky role -- the guy's got a bad heart and poor eyesight, but his dreams lie in the space program. Playing with the American sense of beauty, first-time director Andrew Niccol (writer of The Truman Show) accomplished the nearly impossible in fashioning a movie that is both thrilling and intelligent -- a rare feat in an age where most science fiction movies tend to center on alien invasions. Gattaca (the title is derived entirely from letters in DNA nucleotides, a fact which, to the film's credit, is never made explicit) plays with questions of ethics. If you could change fate and have the perfect child, would you? What would this policy have done to people like Stephen Hawking, Albert Einstein, and Abraham Lincoln? Do viewers fresh from Starship Troopers care for a film that poses such questions? As we are discovering, the world of Gattaca is quite possible, and that perhaps explains most people's fear that the movie would seem too cerebral. Or maybe they just figured on avoiding Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman, who, while generally annoying, take off in their performances just as gloriously as the movie's space shuttles.

Kevin Bacon's Tom Witzky is the epitome of normality in David Koepp's Stir of Echoes, a supernatural thriller that went to great lengths to ensure its grounding in the real world. Witzky, who complains of being too ordinary, is thrust into the world of the extraordinary after his mind is "opened" a bit too much by a dippy, New Age hypnotist. In essence, he becomes a receiver, hearing voices from beyond the grave that beg him to dig [Editor's note: And boy, does he ever!] into the heart of a local murder mystery. Stir of Echoes had the worst timing of release in recent memory, opening directly in the wake of The Sixth Sense, a movie with strikingly similar themes that became a box office juggernaut during its run. True, both films featured kids who talked to dead people, but they each handled their respective themes in unique and thoughtful manners. And I dare say that Bacon was better than Bruce Willis in his role, but still, The Sixth Sense had that fateful head start, and Stir of Echoes got mowed down quicker than you can say "Peter Jackson packs a mean lawnmower." In this case, six degrees did not lead to Kevin Bacon.

Hogarth meets The Iron Giant.

Fate leads young Hogarth Hughes, if not audiences, to The Iron Giant. A movie like this must be nearly impossible to get made. While Disney has the animated musical covered, most studios are content to pour money into poor knockoffs featuring singing appliances and the like. The Iron Giant is quite content to be a real movie, though animation allows its creators absolute freedom of expression -- a live action version would have easily cost 200 million. The antithesis of all things Disney, this is a film that actually has something to say. It's a Cold War parable on the dangers of paranoia nicely packaged in a charming E.T. story that features some of the most concise animation seen outside of Japan. There are no fuzzy bunnies, no singing teapots -- instead, the movie relies on its story (based on a book by deceased poet Ted Hughes), and that is undoubtedly its failing with audiences. Marketed as a kid's movie (replete with a trailer that gives away nearly every plot detail), it would have been better advertised as a family-oriented story (accent on that last word) in which a robot from another world learns about humanity from a little boy. There is no excuse for the failure of this movie.

And really, there's no excuse for the failure of all the others mentioned as well. The mere fact that they are still being made speaks of talent in the system and the desire of fans to explore new and breathtaking heights. Even the most jaded filmgoer can see the connections between these films and the slew of imitators. How many more Brazils and Dark Citys will be dismissed in the name of inferior knock-offs? How many times do studio execs have to view video returns, muttering "Hmm, if it's doing well on tape and DVD, how come it flopped in the theater," before they realize they're going about this all wrong? I say that studios should market to the audience for which a film is made -- forget the mainstream; if you sell it right, they will come. These films exemplify the great peaks that can be achieved in a genre that is still striving for respectability in the face Independence Day 2. So listen up, you tight-walleted Hollywood execs -- let's continue to make these films and give their creators the credit they rightfully deserve.

If not, I'm sure there's a lawnmower or two out there with your names on them.

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