The Darkest Hour takes the end of the world to Moscow
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The Darkest Hour has American heroes battling unseen fireball monsters. Although this film has theatrical release, straight to DVD would have been fine, too.
Written by The Horror Czar
December 25, 2011
Release: December 25, 2011
Directed by: Chris Gorak
Written by: Jon Spaihts (screenplay) (story), Leslie Bohem (story) and M.T. Ahern (story)
Starring:
Emile Hirsch as Sean
Olivia Thirlby as Natalie
Max Minghella as Ben
Rachael Taylor as Anne
Joel Kinnaman as Skyler
Sean (Emile Hirsch) and Ben (Max Minghella) are two buys who develop software in their spare time, and they’ve created an application that alerts travelers to the hot party spots in cities around the world. As soon as they get to Moscow and secure exclusive ability to report on Russian clubs and bars they will be billionaires overnight! That’s not going to happen, it turns out, because the evil Skyler (Joel Kinnaman) has stolen their idea and because the boys didn’t have a nondisclosure agreement in place they have no recourse. Well, at least they are in Moscow and know the cool party places.
After meeting up with Natalie (Olilvia Thirlby) and Anne (Racheel Taylor), two traveling hot girls, the boys settle in to mourn the loss of their wealthy future, but something happening outside provides some distraction. Beautiful and swirling lights in the sky drop balls of light that look like heavenly raindrops – but after they land they become invisible and turn any living thing that goes near them into ashes. The world is under attack by malevolent aliens with the ability to burn up anyone who crosses their path, and it is up to the boys and their new female friends to survive the attack and find survivors.
The Darkest Hour is an alien attack Armageddon film much in the vein of War of the Worlds, Cowboys & Aliens, It Came from Outer Space or any number of Alien invasion films over the years. This time the aliens are invisible and kill humans with a cool burning flesh effect ala the Blade films. The effects are very good in The Darkest Hour and thankfully do not include cheesy space ships or other tomfoolery… although a little bit of Plan 9 From Outer Space never killed anyone.
The story is creative and good surrounding the alien invasion tactics, the back stories of all of the lead characters and the quest to find survivors in a world where most people seem to have been exterminated. Director Chris Gorak, who has many films to his credit as the Art director, knows how to put together some great looking shots and the film is beautiful looking all around. Actually, Gorak was also the production designer for Blade: Trinity which may explain the liberal use of the “burn up to ashes” effect that is the only way the alien kills. There were times when the story dragged a bit and that was just a little annoying, but that gives a hint into the element of The Darkest Hour that prevents the film from being really good – the script.
None other than Sci-fi golden boy Jon Spaihts wrote the screenplay of The Darkest Hour, also credited as one of the writers of the highly anticipated Ridley Scott film Prometheus. There has been quite a bit of rumor and speculation surrounding Spaihts’ role in Prometheus, with the most popular being that he wrote the script directly as a prequel to Alien, only to have Lost writer Damon Lindelof re-do it and take a completely different direction. It would not be surprising at all if this is indeed the truth as Spaihts’ work on The Darkest Hour illustrates that his script-writing needs a tad more work, specifically in the dialogue department.
A film about an alien invasion that could lead to the end of the human race is certainly going to have its share of grandiose proclamations full of principle and hope. It’s important, though, that these film moments not cross the line into such cheese that it’s hard to imagine anyone saying those things no matter what the circumstances. Super 8 is an example of a film that pulls off the cheese in a way that pulls the heart strings, The Darkest Hour is an example of a film that does not. The magic of cinema is shattered when something on the screen prompts a spontaneous “Oh, Brother.”
One final note that must be mentioned – The Darkest Hour is not a horror movie. Sure, people walk too close to an invisible alien and turn into Blade dust, but otherwise the horror just doesn’t happen. It could have been scary and smack dab in the center of horror based on the subject matter and on-screen activities, but it just wasn’t. It’s hard to tell whether this was falsely promoted as “horror” to expand the viewer base, or if it was intended to be horror and missed the mark. In any case, this film would be more appropriate on a list of films that includes The Transformers and Twilight.
The Darkest Hour is generally fun to watch due to cool effects, a good story, great cinematography and nice music, but won’t cross the line to a really good film because of the juvenile “G.I. Joe” phrases and cartoony cheese. I hope that if those script elements existed in the rumored first draft of Prometheus that Damon Lindelof did away with them first thing.
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