Watch: New Video Essay Explores The Similarities Between 'The Matrix' And 'Dark City'

Alex Proyas may still be licking his wounds after his latest effort, the big-budget fantasy epic “Gods of Egypt,” flopped hard with critics and audiences alike (he has subsequently gone on record as comparing film critics to “diseased vultures pecking at the bones of a dying carcass,” but that’s another story). “Gods of Egypt” will eventually be forgotten, and while the jury is out as to whether or not Proyas still has a great film left in him, there was a time back in the mid-to-late 1990s when he was a director whose work was singular. Proyas is probably best known for his brooding rock n’ roll revenge yarn “The Crow,” but I would argue that his 1998 neoi-noir “Dark City” is actually a better film: weirder, but more assured in its execution, and impressive in its conjuring of a hellish nightmare world.

READ MORE: 7-Minute Video Essay Explores The Inspiration And Influences Of 'The Matrix'

“Dark City” came out a year before the philosophically loaded cyberpunk thriller “The...