THE DARKEST HOUR

You’ll Spend At The Movies

Directed by Chris Gorak
Starring Emile Hirsch, Olivia Thirlby, Max Minghella, Rachael Taylor

Boy, where to start? The Darkest Hour is one poorly conceived, written and executed piece of work. Forgetting, and even forgiving, the terrible plot holes and one dimensional characters still won’t give you anything positive to grab on to. You are left with cheap effects, unintentionally hilarious moments and suspenseful scenes that fall flat like a fat man running a marathon.
Here’s the plot, served to you in a similar manner to the movie; straight up like a shot of shit. Two young American dudes find themselves in Moscow, hoping to sell their latest social network app. Hey it’s 2012, that’s what kids do, okay? But some Swedish big shot steals their idea! Douche move, but that’s business in Europe bitch, deal with it. That night they go to the hottest bar in downtown Moscow to drink away their recent business defeat and our American duo, Sean (Emile Hirsch) and Ben (Max Minghella), manage to hook up with what seems to be the only other two users on their newly stolen social networking site, another American chick and Australian Anne, played by Rachael Taylor.
During the night strange lights fall from the sky. But as the lights get closer to the ground, they start destroying things in their path, forcing our group to stick together and survive a mysterious invasion. Yeah that’s right, the aliens are totally invisible. While in the hands of better film makers this may have been a thrilling plot point, in this movie it seems like an easier option than animating real aliens. And when they finally reveal themselves, you’d wish they’d just stayed invisible because of their ridiculous form.
The movie even seems to go out of its way to make its own name make absolutely no sense. It shows the first 15 minutes of the alien invasion, then straight away cuts to the main characters locking themselves in a basement for five days. Okay, so no hour there yet, maybe when they get out of the basement, the next hour of their lives will be terrifying? Oh nope, they spend the day walking, then some more nights hiding out. So maybe this last day, when they possibly reach rescue? … Apparently not. At no point does this movie show one hour, darkest or not, thus not even achieving what its name implies and instead showing large swathes of time which get vaguely brushed over and in which the men don’t grow stubble and the women’s hairstyle remains unchanged.
Sure, as the movie ended the audience in the cinema erupted in to a pretty joyous laugh. Only problem is that at no point did the movie try to be funny and it certainly didn’t end on any funny notes. I think the smiles people had were for the one good grace the makers of The Darkest Hour gave to their audience - a run-time of under 90 minutes. Thank you gentlemen, you are too kind.

_TOM VARIAN