Movie Revie: The Darkest Hour

If Earth was invaded by dangerous electricity-based aliens, what would you do? In December 2011, they released a movie that showed what people would do in such an event, and thankfully it was only 89 minutes long.

Directing this 89 minute action/horror/sci-fi/thriller is Chris Gorak.

Dodging the overwhelming power of the aliens is: Emile Hirsch as Sean, Max Minghella as Ben, Olivia Thirlby as Natalie, Rachael Taylor as Anne, Veronika Vernadskaya as Vika, Georgiy Gromov as Boris and Joel Kinnaman as Skyler.

Ben and Max have traveled from America to Moscow to sell their social network software, Party Locating. While at one of the nightclubs, the guys meet Natalie and Anne, but a power outage breaks up the good time everyone's having. Flooding out to the street, everyone goes to see what's happening, and what they witness
is out of this world. Multiple bits of light are seen falling from the sky, and one lands right in front of the clubbers. After a police officer tries to get a closer look at the surging light, his curiosity is met with deadly consequences. Panic and fear of this unknown entity cause everyone to run for their lives. With communications down, no one knows the severity of this alien threat, is it local... or global? Making this what could be Earth's darkest hour.

Hmm.. where to begin? I liked the aliens, they were ok, when you actually saw them. As for the rest of the movie... it was mildly ok, if you have nothing better to do. The special effects were about the only thing this film had going for it, to a degree. While the aliens looked cool, the scenery had bad CGI from time to time that really stood out. The storyline is a simple alien invasion: Boom here they are, oh-my-god-run-screaming and now try to survive. There were flashes of good imagination in the story that were quickly consumed by the slowly, but ever growing, black hole that was the rest of the film. As far as how the cast did, it's split down the middle. Some not bad, while others, luckily died and didn't have a part in the movie anymore. This was by far not the worst movie I've ever seen (State of Emergency still holds that title). So, I wouldn't kick anybody out of the house for suggesting it for movie night. It has some great B grade hackable material that will entertain everyone watching. Now, if you're serious about what you want to watch and want something good, keep looking. You won't find it here.

It's rated PG-13 for violence.

2 stars for a film that has decent moments, hackable material and... well that's about it really.


Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,