“The Darkest Hour” is a Russian-American sci-fi thriller film directed by Chris Gorak and produced by Timur Bekmambetov. The American-based production depicts an invisible alien invasion and stars Emile Hirsch, Max Minghella, Olivia Thirlby, and Rachael Taylor as young people caught in the invasion. The film was released on December 25, 2011 in the United States and in the Philippines last January 26.
The story started when two young American men (Max Minghella as Ben and Emile Hirsch as Sean) travel to Moscow to sell their social networking/party finding software only to find their software is already being sold by the Russian team they were to sell it to, led by a Swedish businessman (Joel Kinnaman as Skyler). They met two American tourists (Veronika Ozerova as Olivia Thirlby as Natalie) at a club when suddenly a major blackout occured.
They and many other people see an aurora-like apparition in the sky. Some of this light breaks off and lands nearby and it disintegrates the human who approached it. More lights fall and aliens, invisible and protected by force fields, start attacking.
And that’s when the action supposed to begin. When I first saw the trailer, I thought it would be a promising movie and would be enjoyable to watch in 3D. But I guess, I learned my lesson to not expect much by judging a movie by its trailer.
The special effects used for “The Darkest Hour” could have been cool because of the lightings and alien invasion concept except the audience really didn’t feel it. And it’s a shame because the story is something new for me. After the Alien attack, everything that follows becomes a mess. The story becomes shallow and you’ll wish all the cast just die in the end. And speaking of the end, the film’s ending is so “bitin” that you wouldn’t even want a sequel.
Although the character’s fate whether they will survive or not is unpredictable, what is certain is that there will always be a damsel in distress that needs to be rescued. And that you have to insert the cheesiest scene just to make it somehow appealing to the teen viewers.
At some point, even though the film is supposed to be serious, it becomes funny because of some scenes that does not requires comedy.
If ever the movie producers even plan to create a sequel for “The Darkest Hour”, all I can say is good luck.
“The Darkest Hour” is still showing in theaters nationwide from 20th Century Fox to be distributed by Warner Bros.
