Film Review: ‘The Darkest Hour’ starring Emile Hirsch & Max Minghella

If it weren’t for Comic Con, I wouldn’t have known this movie existed. The lack of marketing (at least, internet marketing) for The Darkest Hour would be an indicator that maybe the studio didn’t have much faith in the movie. However, the studio behind the film is Summit, and Summit hardly ever properly markets its films, especially the really good ones like 50/50 or A Better Life. Therefore, I decided that the lack of marketing wasn’t anything to be concerned about, and after meeting  some of the cast members at Comic Con, I really wanted to see and like the film. Unfortunately, I didn’t like the movie that much. The Darkest Hour is full of corny dialogue and acting, and the sci-fi aspect is a bit of a letdown.

The Darkest Hour takes place in Moscow and follows a group of friends who are trying to survive a sudden alien invasion. Led by Sean (Emile Hirsch), they try to find a way to leave Moscow and go back home. The aliens make it extremely difficult because 1. They’re invisible, 2. Once they touch you, you get incinerated into ash, and 3. They have absorbed the city’s entire power supply, so nothing works. Sean and his friends find ways to detect the aliens and work their way across the city to get to safety.

The first thing I noticed about the film was the dialogue. It was so cheesy, and the acting went right along with it. Sean is the typical “no big deal” kind of guy; his friend, Ben (Max Minghella), is the typical neurotic friend. They are in Moscow to pitch an idea of new social networking site, but their plan gets thwarted when they realize that the typical “asshole” guy, Sklyer (Joel Kinnaman), steals their idea. It looks like Max Minghella is in danger of being typecast as “the guy who always gets his idea stolen.” If you’ve seen The Social Network, you know what I mean.

Anyway, this movie just throws a bunch of typical, mediocrely played characters at us; at this point, I was hoping that maybe the science fiction aspect could save it. It really didn’t. While it started off as an interesting idea, the aliens weren’t that cool. Yes, they were scary, but once they figured out how to destroy them, I was like “Really?”  I’m not super into science fiction, but I do appreciate when it’s done brilliantly. It seemed like this movie had the chance to do it well and just blew it. Also, they didn’t even try to let the audience try to figure out anything on our own. Every bit of information possible was handed to us, in a corny string of dialogue of course.

I didn’t hate The Darkest Hour, but it wasn’t that great as well.  One surprising thing about it was that the 3D was consistently present throughout the film. I found that many films this year were pegged as 3D, but only 20 minutes of it was really in 3D. The Darkest Hour was entirely in 3D; although it didn’t really help it much, at least you’re getting what you paid for. However, with all the other options to see in theaters this weekend, this is definitely one to miss.

The Darkest Hour hits theaters Christmas Day, December 25^th.