Aliens who are invisible to the human eye, but vaporise people who stand in their way besiege Moscow. Sean (Emile Hirsch) and Ben (Max Minghella) are in Moscow to give a presentation on their new social network and meet up with Natalie (Olivia Thirlby) and Anne (Rachael Taylor) in a nightclub, just as the aliens reach Earth, and must band together in order to survive.
The Darkest Hour director Chris Gorak has worked most of his career as an Art Director, and it shows; The Darkest Hour looks great. The scenes where the aliens come to earth in flickers of light are undeniably beautiful, and the shots from the invaders point of view are an interesting way of looking at the action and the aliens weaknesses. The problem is, that the movie is flat and superficial.
When watching The Darkest Hour, it is hard not to wonder what happened to Emile Hirch’s career. He made a dazzling breakthrough in Into the Wild in 2007, but since then has failed to make an impact. The script for The Darkest Hour leaves Hirsch delivering such stellar lines as; “What is the dress code for the end of the world, jacket and no tie?”. Hirsch seems unable to perform in this movie without a healthy dollop of cheese, and doesn’t manage to rise above the uninspiring script or direction.
The rest of the cast are just as uninteresting as Hirsch. The characters are not even given the dignity of a back story, they are just given a reason to be in Moscow. From the moment the aliens invade, it is pretty clear who will live and who will die. The confrontation scenes start off tense, but by the final face off, the audience has not been given enough of a reason to care about the characters, and so they don’t.
Plotholes abound, and the 3D is completely unnecessary; it is not even a distraction from the bad story line. The only positive thing that can be said is that at least the characters are given something to strive for, and a reason to survive. Also, it is refreshing to see a non-US city laid siege to. We do not have to suffer through endless addresses from politicians, or see famous American landmarks reduced to dust. This is a human story, but the problem is that we really do not care about any of these one dimensional humans.
The Darkest Hour starts off with good ideas, but these are soon lost in a sea of plotholes, cheesy dialogue and superficial characters. The aliens look cool – when we finally see them – but there is not enough to keep the audience interested, even if the running time is blissfully short.
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Watch The Darkest Hour in UK cinemas from Friday 13 January 2012
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