My views
Plot
John Murdoch awakens in a hotel bathtub with amnesia. He receives a phone call from Dr. Daniel Schreber, who urges him to flee the hotel to evade a group of men who are after him. In the room, Murdoch discovers the corpse of a ritualistically murdered woman and a bloody knife. He flees the scene, just as a group of pale men in trenchcoats ("the Strangers") arrive.
Police Inspector Frank Bumstead, who is investigating murdered prostitutes, identifies Murdoch as a suspect. Following clues, Murdoch learns his name and finds out he has a wife named Emma. When the Strangers corner him, Murdoch instinctively alters reality (an ability the Strangers share and refer to as tuning) to create an escape path for himself.
Murdoch wanders the streets of the city where it is perpetually nighttime but no one seems to notice. When the clock strikes twelve, Murdoch witnesses everyone else fall asleep and the Strangers use tuning to physically rearrange the city's architecture. Afterwards, assisted by Schreber, the Strangers change the inhabitants' memories using an injection containing the new memories. Murdoch learns that he came from a coastal town called Shell Beach, which everyone knows, though no one remembers how to get there and Murdoch's attempts to visit fail. The Strangers inject a copy of the memories given to Murdoch into one of their men, Mr. Hand, hoping it will help them predict Murdoch's movements and track him down.
Inspector Bumstead catches Murdoch, though he acknowledges that Murdoch is most likely innocent, as he has misgivings about the city's nature. They confront Schreber, who explains the Strangers' nature. They are extraterrestrials residing in human corpses who share a hive mind, and are experimenting with humans to analyze individuality in hopes of making a discovery that will help their race to survive. Murdoch, as Schreber reveals, is an anomaly who inadvertently awoke before Schreber could implant his latest identity as a murderer.
Murdoch and Bumstead take Schreber and attempt to reach Shell Beach but instead end up at a poster for the town on a wall at the edge of the city. Frustrated, Murdoch and Bumstead break through the wall, revealing outer space, just before some of the Strangers, including Mr. Hand, arrive with Emma as a hostage. In the ensuing fight, Bumstead and one of the Strangers fall through the hole and drift out into space, and the city is shown to be a deep space habitat surrounded by a force field.
The Strangers bring Murdoch to their home beneath the city and force Schreber to imprint Murdoch with their collective memory, believing Murdoch to be the culmination of their experiments. Against their order, Schreber instead injects Murdoch with memories of decades of training about the Strangers, their machines, and tuning. Murdoch awakens with his powers fully realized. He frees himself and battles the Strangers, eventually defeating their leader Mr. Book in a psychokinetic fight high above the city.
After learning from Schreber that Emma has been re-imprinted and cannot be restored, Murdoch employs his powers, amplified by the Strangers' machines, to create a Shell Beach within the habitat. On his way home, Murdoch encounters a dying Mr. Hand and informs him that the Strangers searched in the wrong place— the mind— to understand humanity. He rotates the habitat toward the star it had been turned away from and the city experiences sunlight for the first time.
Opening a door leading out of the city, Murdoch steps out to view the sunrise. On the pier in front of him is the woman he knew as Emma, who now has new memories and a new identity as Anna. Murdoch reintroduces himself and they walk to Shell Beach, beginning their relationship anew.
Comments
Post a Comment