Movie Review: The Darkest Hour

Image Source: https://chud.com/173929/doomsday-reels-the-darkest-hour/

I wanted to watch a movie on Netflix called Singularity as I had it on my list and it was scheduled to leave the service on May 31st. However, as I started the movie, I found that it was really low budget, the acting wasn’t very good, and, worse yet, the script was poor. I struggled to get through the first 10 minutes of the movie and when I looked at the running time (over 2 hrs), I decided to watch something else as I knew that I wasn’t going to enjoy the movie on any level (which is sad as one of the stars listed is John Cusack, whose work I normally enjoy–if you want to see a good John Cusack movie, please check out Numbers Station instead).

So, as I was scanning Netflix to see what else was available, I discovered a movie that I’d wanted to see for a while: The Darkest Hour. I’d come across a description of it a while back and I wanted to see it, but wasn’t willing to pay for the DVD/Blu-Ray for an untested movie, so I waited and when I saw it on Netflix, I chose to watch it this weekend instead.

The Good

The movie is basically a Russian version of the “alien invasion” movie. The special effects of this movie are really fairly well done. They don’t overuse the effect of how the aliens kill humans (although the actual design of the aliens once they are revealed in the last 3rd of the movie doesn’t look very well at all). I really enjoyed the way they show the aliens attacking and how the aliens interact with the world–which adds tension to the movie.

At the risk of giving away my review, this isn’t a great movie, but it is short. Clocking in at just over 90 minutes, it doesn’t overstay its welcome. It is a much better movie in the first 10 minutes than Singularity (in terms of craft and story), but I felt like it was something that wouldn’t be torture to sit through and watch, unlike Singularity, which promised to be a slog every minute of the way to the end. While watching The Darkest Hour, not only was I surprised at the hour mark that I had made it that far, I saw that I only had an half an hour to go and I powered through it instead of stopping and potentially not coming back to finish watching it. The short time frame is a real bonus here.

The Bad

The script. There are other issues, one of which I’ll talk about in the next section, but primarily the problem rests in the script. I called this a “Russian alien invasion movie,” but really, it is much closer to a “Russian version of Independence Day.” The characterization and plot elements are very reminiscent of that movie, while the actual style is much closer to the Russian movies such as Nightwatch and Daywatch. There’s a real horror vibe to the way the aliens kill humans that creates a fair amount of tension and is one of the best elements of the movie. However, the script undercuts these elements with dialogue that isn’t realistic, with poor characterizations, with predictable scenarios and with some really cheesy moments.

The Ugly

While I’m not usually critical of actors, I have to say that the lead protagonist seemed miscast in the role (or the acting choices that he made didn’t work for me). While he’s portrayed to look like the typical American, that’s not how it comes across to the audience (or to me, at least). He very much has a “Jack Black” look going on and while many of his lines are delivered earnestly, there’s a mischievous look/quality that undercuts most of what he says. In any other movie, he would have been the “troublemaker” character (that goes to someone else in this movie) and he would always be fighting for his own survival. I almost never bought the main character and this consistently took me out of the movie. There are other issues with character choices, but I chalk those up the script.

Also, whenever the aliens aren’t on screen, this movie is much worse. The first 15 minutes, before the aliens show up, are rough, but I could get through it, knowing that they were trying to set up the characters to make you care about them, so that you would feel concerned for what happened to them for the rest of the narrative. However, the last 10 minutes of the movie, the anti-climax of the movie, after the aliens are off the screen, are some of the cheesiest that I’ve ever seen. When you have a supporting character roll their eyes, that should give you pause as a director/screenwriter, to perhaps change/modify that section. The supporting character who rolls their eyes acts as a surrogate for the audience as the ending seems BEYOND forced, having not been earned throughout the narrative.

Grade: 72 (C-)

Rating: 3 out of 5.

This is a very specific grade for me. The movie is below average, no question. However, the first 40-50 minutes of the movie are average/above average due to the tension that the movie is able to create with the way in which the aliens kill. However, it falls down in so many other areas, that I felt that those areas really dragged this movie down. Add to that the questionable casting of the main protagonist and the cheesiness of the first 15 minutes/last 10 minutes of the movie and you have a movie that is definitely below the average movie. The fact that it is very short and that the middle moves at a good clip really redeems this story and lifts it up just enough to be enough of an enjoyable watch and not a waste of time (unlike Singularity promised to be).

What I learned from this movie: that you want to create characters that the reader/viewer/audience cares about before the “strange things” happen. World War Z does this much better and in much less time. That movie is able to humanize the main character in less than 5 minutes of movie time when the narrative “proper” kicks off. It does in 5 minutes, what this movie couldn’t do at all (for me), and now I have a good example and a bad example of how to humanize the main character so that the audience cares about the protagonist.

Sidney

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