The Darkest Hour

This was a bit of fun to watch, nothing special, like an above average sci-fi channel flick, but fun to watch nonetheless. Hasn't been a box office hit or getting much in the way of good reviews, but if basic alien invasion is your cup of tea, you will probably enjoy it too. I liked the aliens, not your usual lot, and the Moscow sets. The cast gave decent performances as well. I would have liked to see more of the invaders and would have liked a few more battle scenes, and could have enjoyed it just as well without the 3D effects. All things considered, I will add it to my collection when it's available on disc. Catch this during a matinée if you must, but you'll probably like it a whole lot more on a theater's big screen than waiting for HBO.

I don't understand why such a low rating for this movie. That is why I gave it a higher rating.

The acting is decent. The concept was somewhat original. And, I have seen numerous sci-fi and horror movies and this one kept my attention. Unlike many other movies.

The movie takes place in Moscow with 4 Americans trying to survive an alien invasion. Nice change from all other invasions only occurring in America.

How they go about surviving is the interesting part with one technique (while they are in the apartment of Sergei) that is a reality for a real life apocalyptic event. Most people would not realize this unless they were into science, but for those that are it is cool to see it used in the movie. And, for those who are not aware of it should Google it. You might find it interesting.

I am glad that I ignored the low rating and watched the movie. Was not disappointed.

Rating I would give it is: 6.5 out of 10.

The trailer to The Darkest Hour will make you feel like you just have to watch this movie. Clips around Moscow, a group of friends hanging out at a club, but then comes the twist when you see invisible creatures just absorbing humans. The incredibly tense music, short clips of fight scenes, and voice over of one of the characters that seem to know everything about these invisible aliens are very intimidating. You also get a very, very clear picture of what this movie is about, and I wanted to watch it. I wanted to watch it so bad, it was the main focus of my birthday party.

But my heart sank when I checked IMDb, and they rated it 5.1 out of 10. Alright, it's an okay mark, so then I checked rottentomatoes.com. It is embarrassing to say that viewers rated the movie 29%, and the critics rated it a flopping 14%. Also, watching and reading several movie reviews, one review mentioned how only kids under the age of 25 would like it, got my hopes bunked down even further.

The Darkest hour (directed by Chris Gorak) is about two best friends Sean (Emile Hirsch) and Ben (Max Minghella), two young social network developers visiting Moscow hoping that a Russian company will go on board with their website which helps tourists find "hot clubs" around the world. When they enter the boardroom, they find out that Skyler (Joel Kinnaman), their Swedish associate who speaks Russian, has stolen their idea and claimed "it's business".

Sean and Ben are then escorted by security guards outside the building after Sean throws a fit. The two go to a popular night-club called Zvezda, where they see Skyler. Ben finds out that an American, Natalie (Olivia Thrilby) and her Australian friend Anne (Rachael Taylor), who use his app, are there too and they quickly become friends. Just as they are about to take a group photo, all power goes out! OH NO! HOW UNPREDICTABLE.

Everybody in the club exits to see what's going on and yellow lights are falling slowly from the sky. One comes nearby, but it's invisible, only releasing small glimpses of yellow light. A nearby policeman approaches the invisible alien, and is turned to dust. Everybody starts running and extras get killed, but of course, our five main characters live and find a safe place to hide, which just so happens to be the cellar where the club stores all their food. They then go out once their food stock runs empty and try to go to the American embassy. Really, what were they thinking they were going to find?

The rest of the movie is them running away from these invisible enemies, trying to find other survivors, couple of people die and the ending is predictable.

There aren't that many flaws in the movie. I liked all the action scenes and how intense some scenes were. Sean, who in the beginning comes off as a slack and a bit dumb, was able to find out how to detect these invisible aliens, and how to hide from them.

The one thing that puzzled me, was that everybody was on a boat in the river, but the building next to it comes down on them so they were all forced into the water. But Natalie, who wasn't there after everybody came up from the water, ends up what seems like miles stranded on a bus. HOW DID SHE GET THERE? I mean seriously, did she fly over the building? No. She was holding hands with Sean and jumped into the water. I hate it when directors make horrible choices just to remove a character in a surprising way.

The young actors did well with the material, but the script. Oh the script. Don't get me wrong, the idea of the story is amazing, but some of the action seemed, random. Like it the screenwriter just didn't bother to plan it out well. I guess you can say the effects were cool, but I don't think it's hard to create invisible aliens.

The movie was enjoyable! Like I said earlier, the action was great, the overall idea was very, very, very cool and exciting. I may not have seen the movie Skyline (2011), but there are many comparisons to it because of the similar plot.

So should you watch it? Yes! Go ahead! I liked it, despite the incredibly low ratings other critics gave it. It's a great action movie for tweens and teens (not kids because the beginning's got some mild language). It's a great action movie, but it is pretty similar to other sci-fi thriller action movies out there.

While maybe not much better than what the ratings and reviews say, at the very least 'The Darkest Hour' has the fun factor going for it. There is not much for a plot: your typical alien invasion, where a group of survivors have to try and survive the attack while in Moscow.

Wait, Moscow?

One of the things I liked here was that there IS originality. Instead of another American city, or even Tokyo/London, this time around we watch Moscow under attack. Instead of having to see the characters running and hiding around the same New York for the nth time, we are presented an 'unknown' scenario that has a lot of charm going for it.

Another plus is the aliens themselves. Not your typical armor-wearing soldiers or 'greys', but in here they have a very original design (bodyless masses of light). It is sad to hear the clichèd excuse for their invasion, but they are very interesting to see.

Despite these flairs of originality, overall the film suffers from the typical B-movie sci-fi problems. The blandness of the cast and some logic-defying situations/developments (every Russian they meet speak perfect English, for example) are downsides, but the straight-forward plot, lack of an overly pretentious message and non-boring development more than compensate.

Overall, this is far from a great film but it is a fun straight-forward B-movie with some welcome flashes of originality. It more than succeeds on entertaining, as long as you don't over-blow your expectations.

The idea behind the darkest hour was original. It is nice to finally see something that hasn't been recycled from another movie, game, book, etc. That being said the main problems in the movie come from a rather dull open story. It leaves you with many unanswered questions. There are also many flaws in different aspects of the movie. Being an avid movie goer I give this a 6 out of 10 because of the original idea. But it could have been way better had they developed script better. The other flaw was the lack of graphics. They clearly spent very little on special effects. I feel that this should have been a TV movie. Not something to go see in the theater.