THE DARKEST HOUR
On a business trip to Moscow, two plucky Americans find themselves in the middle of an alien invasion, battling invisible creatures that use our electrical systems to find their prey, us.
Now that is a very simplistic plot summary, but in fairness, this is an incredibly simplistic film. I said above that this film was universally panned when it came out, and I wasn't kidding. 16 out of 100 on Metacritic, which for those who don't know is a website that combines as many critic reviews for movies, games and music and puts them together into one overall score. Compared to scores of films from the same year (2011), The Darkest Hour is apparently worse than Shark Night 3D (22/100), Apollo 18 (24/100) and surprisingly, The Human Centipede 2 (17/100). Now this does not bode well at all. For some reason unknown to me (maybe sheer insanity) I decided to watch this apocalyptic horror anyway, and every time I think back to this movie, I cannot for the life of me think why I did.
The film starts out in the usual fashion of introducing witty and charming Americans who you are supposed to care about for the duration of the film. Our two leading heroes for this particular horror are Speed Racer's Emile Hirsch and Max Minghella (who's been in such hits as The Social Network and The Ides Of March), both of whom do a fairly decent job in portraying plucky American "businessmen", although throughout the first half of the film, they mainly portray the horny teenager stereotype we've come to know and....well, not love, from the American Pie franchise. Essentially, after failing in their business related endeavors, the two plucky Americans go on the pull in Russia, but for some reason, are only able to attract other Americans. So the initial plot is established and as both guys attempt to hook up with the two girls (who of course initially hate them but then grow to like them), the inevitable alien invasion occurs.
This is rather dull as far as alien invasions go. For starters, the aliens themselves are largely invisible, only choosing to reveal themselves as glowing balls of shifting yellow light when you need to be reminded that there's an actual threat to our protagonists. The aliens themselves are inventive and non-inventive at the same time. There are rules and limitations that come into play that our protagonists quickly learn, but the real downfall is in when the heroes have to kill them. This results in the audience learning what the main downfall of this film is. The special effects. There are a lot of bad effects going on at the moment in Hollywood, but believe me when I tell you, the aliens in The Darkest Hour, are some of the worst looking creature/evil beings I have ever seen in a movie. EVER! The aliens look like some sort of rejected enemy idea from Sonic The Hedgehog or Super Mario Brothers. For an enemy that is initially perceived as a ruthless, brutal and unforgiving killing machine, they look incredibly non-intimidating. If that makes sense. It has just occurred to me that the closest thing they resemble, is a rejected Pokemon. When you see it, you will (most likely) know exactly what I mean!
So what can be said for the rest of the film? Um, well if you were expecting anything good to be said about this film then you can just keep clicking to another article! We shall start with acting, which...well there is no other word for it. It's shit. I do not like to swear on this blog usually, but really, there is no emotional attachment between any of these characters, even between Hirsch and Minghella. They do not act like they are best friends at the best of times, but when the film starts to get serious, they don't really try and stick by each other, instead they seem more concerned with the women they've met, or the random survivors they meet. Surely your best friend and business partner generates a greater friendship bond than a random woman you've met halfway across the world? But I digress. Character flaws aside, the acting is still diabolical, especially during key death scenes.
Yeah, we all know some key characters introduced early in the film are going to die, let's not kid ourselves here. The important thing is that you need to show that the characters are emotionally distraught and tormented when a close friend/loved one dies. However, the writers obviously forgot that people care about each other, and so they decided to show no emotion whatsoever when a close friend died at the hands of some poorly implemented CGI alien. Is it not so hard to shed a tear when your best friend in the whole wide world dies? Apparently, for actors, it is! Hell, if you wanted someone to cry at any characters death in a film, just hire Liv Tyler. I mean really, she cries at absolutely anything, it's pretty much all she does, even in The Incredible Hulk! Anyway, shall we move on to some sort of summary. Yeah, let's do that.
OK, well, this film was truly awful. I have seen a lot of bad films in my relatively short time on this planet. Some may say I seek these types of films out just to see how bad films can really be, and I can tell you that I have found something that may very well be the cream of the crop. Despite some slightly inventive enemies (in theory), the way the whole film was put together, including characters, effects, story arcs and general script writing, means that there is literally no enjoyment to be had in this film at all. I cannot believe that an idea that was quite promising turned out to be one of the worst films I've seen in (at least!) the last 5 years. Truly terrible!
Score: 1.0/10
See you on Friday folks! No idea what I'll be reviewing, but hey, that's part of the surprise isn't is?!
Until next time internet!
Now that is a very simplistic plot summary, but in fairness, this is an incredibly simplistic film. I said above that this film was universally panned when it came out, and I wasn't kidding. 16 out of 100 on Metacritic, which for those who don't know is a website that combines as many critic reviews for movies, games and music and puts them together into one overall score. Compared to scores of films from the same year (2011), The Darkest Hour is apparently worse than Shark Night 3D (22/100), Apollo 18 (24/100) and surprisingly, The Human Centipede 2 (17/100). Now this does not bode well at all. For some reason unknown to me (maybe sheer insanity) I decided to watch this apocalyptic horror anyway, and every time I think back to this movie, I cannot for the life of me think why I did.
The film starts out in the usual fashion of introducing witty and charming Americans who you are supposed to care about for the duration of the film. Our two leading heroes for this particular horror are Speed Racer's Emile Hirsch and Max Minghella (who's been in such hits as The Social Network and The Ides Of March), both of whom do a fairly decent job in portraying plucky American "businessmen", although throughout the first half of the film, they mainly portray the horny teenager stereotype we've come to know and....well, not love, from the American Pie franchise. Essentially, after failing in their business related endeavors, the two plucky Americans go on the pull in Russia, but for some reason, are only able to attract other Americans. So the initial plot is established and as both guys attempt to hook up with the two girls (who of course initially hate them but then grow to like them), the inevitable alien invasion occurs.
This is rather dull as far as alien invasions go. For starters, the aliens themselves are largely invisible, only choosing to reveal themselves as glowing balls of shifting yellow light when you need to be reminded that there's an actual threat to our protagonists. The aliens themselves are inventive and non-inventive at the same time. There are rules and limitations that come into play that our protagonists quickly learn, but the real downfall is in when the heroes have to kill them. This results in the audience learning what the main downfall of this film is. The special effects. There are a lot of bad effects going on at the moment in Hollywood, but believe me when I tell you, the aliens in The Darkest Hour, are some of the worst looking creature/evil beings I have ever seen in a movie. EVER! The aliens look like some sort of rejected enemy idea from Sonic The Hedgehog or Super Mario Brothers. For an enemy that is initially perceived as a ruthless, brutal and unforgiving killing machine, they look incredibly non-intimidating. If that makes sense. It has just occurred to me that the closest thing they resemble, is a rejected Pokemon. When you see it, you will (most likely) know exactly what I mean!
So what can be said for the rest of the film? Um, well if you were expecting anything good to be said about this film then you can just keep clicking to another article! We shall start with acting, which...well there is no other word for it. It's shit. I do not like to swear on this blog usually, but really, there is no emotional attachment between any of these characters, even between Hirsch and Minghella. They do not act like they are best friends at the best of times, but when the film starts to get serious, they don't really try and stick by each other, instead they seem more concerned with the women they've met, or the random survivors they meet. Surely your best friend and business partner generates a greater friendship bond than a random woman you've met halfway across the world? But I digress. Character flaws aside, the acting is still diabolical, especially during key death scenes.
Yeah, we all know some key characters introduced early in the film are going to die, let's not kid ourselves here. The important thing is that you need to show that the characters are emotionally distraught and tormented when a close friend/loved one dies. However, the writers obviously forgot that people care about each other, and so they decided to show no emotion whatsoever when a close friend died at the hands of some poorly implemented CGI alien. Is it not so hard to shed a tear when your best friend in the whole wide world dies? Apparently, for actors, it is! Hell, if you wanted someone to cry at any characters death in a film, just hire Liv Tyler. I mean really, she cries at absolutely anything, it's pretty much all she does, even in The Incredible Hulk! Anyway, shall we move on to some sort of summary. Yeah, let's do that.
OK, well, this film was truly awful. I have seen a lot of bad films in my relatively short time on this planet. Some may say I seek these types of films out just to see how bad films can really be, and I can tell you that I have found something that may very well be the cream of the crop. Despite some slightly inventive enemies (in theory), the way the whole film was put together, including characters, effects, story arcs and general script writing, means that there is literally no enjoyment to be had in this film at all. I cannot believe that an idea that was quite promising turned out to be one of the worst films I've seen in (at least!) the last 5 years. Truly terrible!
Score: 1.0/10
See you on Friday folks! No idea what I'll be reviewing, but hey, that's part of the surprise isn't is?!
Until next time internet!
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