User Reviews

Christmas day! What a day for seeing movies! I really wanted to see Sir Brad Bird's Mission Impossible, but my friend wanted to see it with me, so I went for the next best thing: a Summit film. If you have can't the best, get the worst, Fat Man sez. Just going to start off with a disclaimer: SPOILER ALERTS. I won't say the movie was predictable, but it certainly wasn't rational. Throughout this review, I'll be throwing in some sane person/writer pop quizzes. Let's see how you stack up!

The Darkest Hour starts with our " " "heros" " " " – I really couldn't put enough quotes around that word – flying in to Moscow on the worst CG airplane I've ever seen. Nice, Summit. Sean and Ben are there to pitch their newest internet craze Apple phones apps – World Travel Hunter (I honestly don't remember) – to an investment group. They find that their Swedish buddy, Skyler, has ripped off their idea and is selling it as they walk in the room. WHOA!! In a fit of being sad, they end up at a hip hip Moscow night club with two of the stupidest people on the continent, Natalie and Anne. Now that we have our cast of dummies, aliens invade. They hide in the basement of the club for a week until the coast is clear.

POP QUIZ #1! Aliens have attacked and slaughtered most humans alive. You're an American in Moscow and still alive. What do you do? A) Head for the closest police station. B) Head for the closest military base. C) Head for the highest building to get a vantage point on the action. D) Head for the American Embassy.

If you chose D, you're in good company. Off they go! Oh wait, it's time for…

POP QUIZ #2! Aliens have attacked and slaughtered most humans alive. You're in Moscow and you know nothing except that they are out for blood. You've got to get to… *sigh*… the American Embassy. How do you get there? A) Try to move from building to building, using interconnects. B) Walk down the middle of the biggest street you can find, in full view of everything. C) Use the ancient Moscow sewer and tunnel systems. D) Take advantage of the extensive underground transit system.

If you answered B, not only was that the best choice, but you're still alive. Now at the embassy, they find nobody is there, but somehow discover there's a SUBMARINE leaving soon that will take them to relative safety. Joined by others along the way, they finally get on a boat to float down to the sub. Oh, Ben, Skylar, and Anne are now dead. Guess those choices weren't so good after all. A huge blast knocks the boat over, and everybody manages to make it to the sub 50 feet away except for Natalie…

FINAL QUIZ! #3 FOR ALL THE MARBLES! You are trying to get to the safety of a submarine when you're knocked in to the water. Do you.. A) Resurface, swim to the sub, and get in. B) Resurface, swim to the sub, and get in. C) Resurface, swim to the bank, walk 20 feet to the sub, and get in. D) Resurface, swim to the bank, head a half mile inland at a dead sprint, and hide in a bus.

If you chose D, you are the love interest of The Darkest Hour and we're supposed to be cheering for you to make it. Wow. Wow. Needless to say, or maybe I should since nothing else made sense, they retrieve her, kill a few aliens, and head off. The crappy VO at the end lets us know a few other aliens have been killed and one or two ships blown up. So? They're strip-mining the earth and then leaving.

I've aired most of my complaints already, but it's worth noting a few other things. Emile Hirsch and Max Minghella are no slouches, acting- wise, but you couldn't tell. Even good actors need direction, I suppose. I also take back everything I've said about wanting better monster design. These were completely original and completely horrible.

Darkest Hour really leaves me a little torn. On one hand, I enjoyed the film immensely. It's like watching a car full of Hollywood producers roll down a hill, catch fire, and burst in to flames. Beautiful and hilarious in its tragedy. On the other hand, this film got heavily marketed, released in over 2000 theaters, and did terrible in the box office. Hollywood complains that nobody wants to go to movies, nobody is buying tickets, it's all the fault of pirates, we need more more more restrictions so we can make every bit we can. Funny, the top monthly grosses have all happened since 2007, most since 2009, and 4 in 2011 alone. Who's not making enough money? This will also be held up as an example of why original work doesn't sell – more prequels, sequels, and remakes for everyone! Maybe if you had a screening process for scripts and gave creative control to directors and writers instead of a pile of producers, good, original work would be successful.

Merry Christmas everyone. Continue to vote with your dollar and give your hard earned cash to deserving movies.

Granted I wasn't expecting a great deal from The Darkest Hour, where the trailers have probably spelt out the entire film from beginning to end, and more than validated it to be nothing but a special effects extravaganza. Then again, what you have already seen is it, as The Darkest Hour indeed is the darkest in terms of filmmaking, having nothing else served up to excite nor to thrill, sticking to what would be a rote storyline packaged hundreds of times over.

The selling point of the film is of course Timur Bekmambetov's name on the credits, a filmmaker who had made everyone sit up and take notice of his inventive, stylish science fiction films out of Russia - Night Watch and Day Watch - that Hollywood had come wooing, and from then on it's either producer creds to help boost some languishing production, or allowing the filmmaker to helm his own like in Wanted. Not everything he touches turns to gold of course, and sadly The Darkest Hour boasted what could have been something he could have done, but ultimately falling very flat on its face because of the lack of freshness in its story, written by Leslie Bohem, M.T. Ahem and Jon Spaihts, who also had screenplay responsibilities.

The premise is as bland as you can get, and frankly can work in any other major city if not for the exoticness of Moscow, and Bekmambetov's connection of course. The characters too can be anyone other than the software engineering duo Sean (Emile Hirsch) and Ben (Max Minghella) who flew halfway across the world to find out they were outplayed by their Swedish competitor Skyler (Joel Kinnaman), and two holidaying teenage girls Natalie (Olivia Thirlby) and Anne (Rachael Taylor), who all got together in a hip pub, only for what could have led to respective one night stands interrupted by a parade of lights falling from the sky, which from the trailer you will know contain some mean, invisible aliens out to annihilate all of humankind for our energy.

Yes you read that right, invisible aliens. They have this innate ability to light up bulbs activate anything that's run by electricity, since it's a signature they carry, before being allowed to reveal something extra in the final few scenes. Sure, something invisible would work in playing up our fears, but the way director Chris Gorak did it, his inexperience shows. Similar genre films like Attack The Block built anticipation nicely, but here we get nothing of that sort of emotional engagement, as it teases through elements that suggest vulnerability and chinks in the adversary's armour, force fields of sorts that are entirely resistant to whatever arsenal us humans can throw at it, if we can get to realize their positions first.

The plot could have been written by any newbie hack sent packing home to watch countless of alien invasion and monster movies, to be able to come up with something that's really quite plain and lacking true suspense. In some ways it's like an amalgamation of science fiction films from I am Legend to other contemporary alien invasion type movies, except that we don't give a hoot too much for the characters involved here, so much so that the filmmakers have the audacity and courage to ensure equal opportunity to become alien fodder, which is a rarity.

Effects wise, this two trick pony will soon wear out its novelty, the first of which is the way the aliens turn humans and all living creatures into swirling dust upon contact, and the second of which is an electrical whip-like probe that goes feeling around for lifeforms. Nothing terribly original here, and after a while these limited bag of tricks do become a little stale. As for its 3D presentation, there's only depth of field, getting human dust falling all over, as well as having exploding debris hurtle toward the screen. Some large scale effects like collapsing walls and huge probes to siphon Earth's resources still looked a little bit raw,

Perhaps then if you're looking for any sliver of merit to watch this, it will be for the on- location shoots in Russia, as well as having this film mark what would be a rare treat at having Russian soldiers/mercenaries in action up against the enemy compared to the usual US led war machinery in any alien invasion film, and this one also marking a USA-Russia collaboration amongst survivors in this post-cold war era. But you need not have to look that deep into this film, because it's indeed a struggle to find something unique and of narrative quality, failing which The Darkest Hour is only at best a mediocre film that offers nothing new.

This movie is a great idea with a very sloppy execution. As many others have mentioned, the aliens being able to read human bioelectricity and generating electricity is a pretty unique concept and I was delighted to see a new approach to the alien invasion genre. However, its creativite energy is nearly entirely muffled with stupid plot conveniences, poor acting, and plot holes.

Although I really enjoyed the concept, I felt that the rules about how the aliens behaved (and who, by the way, are never given a name or anything) were never consistent. Apparently, they couldn't see human bioelectricity through glass, which the main characters use to their advantage when they hide from the aliens in the mall. However, one of the aliens can see the three girls when they are searching for supplies through the glass windows of the apartment complex? It also seemed like they modified the aliens' behavior midway through the movie for no reason other than dramatic effect. In the beginning, people seemed to disintegrate with only slight physical contact with the aliens. Yet later on, the aliens could grab onto people and drag them around (which seemed to only happen with our main characters, of course). The inconsistent behavior of our antagonists ruins their credibility within the universe and is an utterly lazy oversight on behalf of the director and writers.

The main characters are even more one-dimensional and idiotic. You are expected to believe that they are smart enough to have survived while millions others perished, because... why? They take so many unnecessary risks that put them into so much danger when they could just not? The Swedish guy was apparently the irrational one for questioning the absurdity of their decisions. For example, why did the blonde girl choose not to trust Vika on where to hide when she clearly did not know the apartment complex? There is no reason for her not to. Why do they so blindly trust the nuclear submarine prospect? Where do they think it will take them? You have found a safe community, and you don't even want to entertain the idea of maybe staying there?

And there is really not indication of their predicament on their outward appearance. They're not grungy or raggedy or sweaty or even a little bit disheveled. They're not even a little bit thirsty or hungry, even. They're all perfect-looking and they even take some time to change into a fashionable outfit (which was such a wasted opportunity for some realism). Combined with the actors' terrible acting and the attempted "jokes", this makes any type of meaningful connection with the characters impossible. I didn't care about them. I didn't even know their names by the end of the movie (except for Natalie's). The deaths of some of the more central characters are done abruptly, without even a modicum of gravity to communicate their importance. They die, and the film moves on because it was just an excuse to create a little drama.

Overall, the plot is bland. Aliens invade, they fight to survive, they find some people, people die, etc. With such an interesting concept, you would think the plot would've maybe focused more on creating a little more depth to these characters? Maybe fleshing out the aliens a bit, maybe even giving them a name? Nope. Every character is introduced and then you just watch them do things. The most interesting character was the Russian guy on a horse. And the cat.

One last thing that really peeved me, which is more of a personal pet peeve than an actual movie flaw, is that yes, this film is set in Russia. You may ask, what does this add to the story? And the answer is nothing. This film could have been set in Germany and nothing would have changed. There is no reason to keep emphasizing that they are in Russia. "Oh, but what about the language barrier?" Nope. Half of the Russian characters they meet speak English, and the only tiny bit of struggle they have regarding a language barrier is trying to translate a Russian radio transmission, which is solved in less than 10 minutes of movie time. It is a redundant piece of information that is continuously emphasized for NO reason. But some people might not care about this, so I don't exactly blame the movie for it.

Overall, I had high expectations for this movie and was disappointed but this is just my opinion. My partner did enjoy this film so if you enjoy it, more power to you.

The Darkest Hour: Movie Review.

The Darkest Hour is a film with a promising premise and an interesting concept but ends as a very boring, dumb, dull cheap and cheesy sci fi film with no entertainment factor at all. The movie lacks very much it its each and every section and has a very weak underdeveloped and an underwhelming plot with bad performances and direction. The only thing good about this film is some little bit of visual sequences and that's all.

(Please Note: That This Review represent only my professional point of view and my personal honest opinion about the film, and does not represent others. Thank You).

We went to see this Christmas night. The entire family thought this was horrible. We were ready to leave 20 minutes into it. We (I) was hoping for it to get good and was sorely disappointed: it only got worse. The dialog was below amateurish, the acting was poor, the story/plot ridiculous. Don't Waste Your Money! Wait for Netflix or Cable TV. Not worth paying for. The only redeeming thing about this movie was some of the special effects. Most were done fairly well, but the aliens themselves, once their invisible shields were disrupted, were nothing more than scary looking Pokemon type creatures. It was a big letdown. This whole movie was a big letdown.

***SPOILERS*** The reviews of this movie are disappointing to me. It wasn't the greatest, but it did very well with the "think outside the box" mentality that today's cinema direly lacks.

For instance, nearly every alien movie to date is based on a humanoid figure with "advancements" on human technology. They have a head, limbs, vital organs, shoot lasers with guns and have super-powered bombs. These aliens do not. Furthermore, whether or not they have physical bodies is even in question- and their ability to bend light is something mankind likely won't possess anytime soon.

Nearly every thriller these days dealing with an invasion of some kind portrays nightfall as the "dangerous" time, and daytime as the "relatively safe mode". This movie switches that up- and what is the material they are able to hide behind? Glass. A material that we as humans can see through perfectly well, is the visual roadblock for these invaders. Even the way humanity is being exterminated is unique to this movie. Seems the people giving this a bad review aren't happy unless the bad guy is straight out of Halo with some kind of automatic space rifle.

Sure there's a few plot holes and unbelievable coincidences, but these days the amount of generic alien/zombie/plague/apocalypse movies coming out with slightly varied versions of the same dilemma aren't exactly boasting bulletproof material either. This movie takes an original idea and combines it with an original environment (whoa a movie not set in a country that speaks English?) and gets spit on because it's not the same recycled garbage we've seen for years?? Please.

I'm not saying it's a great movie, but it's certainly better than the plethora of alien invasion movies being farmed out by Hollywood. If you just see "invisible aliens" instead of "light bending energy- based non-humanoids", then you're the type of person directly contributing to the mind-numbing amount of refuse our entertainment seems to propagate itself with.

This was actually quite a fun movie, far better than so many of the "Worst Movie Ever" reviews offered here would have you think.

It's a straight-forward, well-produced apocalyptic aliens-attack flick.

I even found the dialogue and acting quite natural and engaging. The characters did set up irrational hopes and goals for themselves, but then irrational hopes and goals are perfectly natural responses given the fact that they were all young, shell-shocked and inexperienced in the ways of apocalyptic alien attacks.

So it's a neat little film. Though it offered a few interesting new ideas, it didn't do anything super ground breaking, and it followed basic story formula, but it did so with smooth competence and I found myself engaged throughout.

What I find far *more* interesting, and what I don't fully understand, is the very strong negative reaction from so many people here...

I have a theory about that: This film showed the human race getting easily trounced by aliens which didn't obey any laws of physics we understand. The invaders used none of the regular high-tech equipment we've seen countless times before in alien films. Nope. Instead, these aliens were more like ghosts. How do you fight a ghost? I think perhaps this is what audiences found upsetting: Darkest Hour didn't fortify the nursery rhyme of intrinsic human superiority, not like we saw in Independence Day, where despite their giant space ships and White House destroying super-beam weapons, we were still able to use ridiculously primitive human technology (computer viruses and nukes? c'mon!) and good-ol' human gumption to defeat the alien menace because they were truly stupid, and aside from being ugly, were not actually so very different from us.

Instead, Darkest Hour showed us aliens which don't even obey the same laws of physics we understand. It made humanity look small and vulnerable, and resistance futile. (The film *did* try to supply the audience with a hope that humanity might be able to fight back. The odds looked pretty long to me, though.)

Maybe people don't like to see that concept in their entertainment and reject it from a gut level.

Just a theory.

The American software designers Sean (Emile Hirsch) and Ben (Max Minghella) travel to Moscow to sell their software in a business meeting with investors. However, their Swedish partner Skyler (Joel Kinnaman) pulls a fast one on Sean and Ben and they are out of the business.

Sean and Ben go to a nightclub, where they meet the American Natalie (Olivia Thirlby) and Anne (Rachael Taylor) and they flirt with the girls and see Skyler in the club. Out of the blue, the population is surprised by lights that seem to be an Aurora Borealis. But sooner they learn that the lights are aliens invading Earth and using power supply to annihilate the mankind.

Sean, Ben, Natalie, Anne and Skyler hide in the kitchen and when they leave the place, they seek out survivors on the street. Are they the last persons on Earth?

"The Darkest Hour" is a terrible sci-fi film with many fake reviews in IMDb promoting this flick (click on the author's name of the favorable reviews and see how many reviews they have in IMDb).

The storyline and the screenplay seem to be inspired in the also awful "Skyline", but taking place in Moscow instead of in Los Angeles. Fortunately I have just seen this boring film on DVD and it was possible to rewind to see the part when I slept despite being an action sci-fi film. The worst, the end of the story has the clear intention to be continued. My vote is three.

Title (Brazil): "A Hora da Escuridão" ("The Darkness Hour")