The Darkest Hour

You may remember an American film that was released towards the end of 2010 called “Skyline.” It was a science-fiction thriller centred on a small band of sexy teens who discover to their horror that a full-scale alien invasion is occurring right outside their Los Angeles apartment building. It was directed by second-time filmmakers the Brothers Strause and produced with a relatively small budget of $10-20 million. It was also a positively dreadful film filled with wooden acting, crappy dialogue, insipid characters and unsatisfying thrills, but the film’s single saving grace was its use of special effects, which, given the limited budget, were rather impressive.

Why am I talking about “Skyline” at the end of 2011? Well, newly released film “The Darkest Hour” is very similar to “Skyline.” Like “Skyline,” it is also a science-fiction thriller about an alien invasion, although produced with a slightly bigger budget of $40 million. And it too is filled with wooden acting, crappy dialogue, insipid characters and unsatisfying thrills. Unlike “Skyline,” however, “The Darkest Hour” does not have nifty special effects to save its skin, and this is because the aliens in this film are fucking invisible.

Now, that’s not to say that the film doesn’t contain some special effects; this is, after all, a Hollywood alien invasion flick. The aliens themselves, while invisible for the most part, do on occasion visually manifest themselves as floating, glowing, CGI pinwheels – how intimidating. And the aliens also use golden, shining, CGI whips to lasso themselves a human being or two, who are swiftly reduced to piles of ashes – a la Spielberg’s “War of the Worlds” remake – upon physical contact with the transparent extra-terrestrials. That last part may sound rather cool, maybe even awesome, and it is to begin with, but it’s a gimmick that grows very wearisome after the first five or fifteen times it’s used in the film.

Being hunted by these invaders from outer space are the residents of Moscow, as well as two American men, a young American lady, a young Australian lady and a Swedish prick. The two American men are Sean (Emile Hirsch, “Into the Wild”) and Ben (Max Minghella, “The Social Network”), two best buddies who travel to Moscow for a business deal that goes a little awry. The American lady and Australian lady are holidaying BFFs Natalie (Olivia Thirlby, “Juno”) and Anne (Rachael Taylor, “Transformers”), respectively. And the Swedish prick is Skyler (Joel Kinnaman, “Easy Money”), who is Swedish and is a prick.

These five characters are all drinking and laughing in a Moscow night club when suddenly the building's power cuts out. They, along with everyone else in the club, swiftly venture to the street outside. What they see is puzzling: there are ominous balls of light descending from the night sky above. A Russian police officer stupidly approaches one of the lights that has fallen to the ground, reaches his baton out and is turned into a pile of ashes. Good going, Russian police force.

Sean, Ben, Natalie, Anne and Skyler quickly discover that the mysterious lights are in fact energy-feeding aliens who have come to Earth with the intention of draining our power supply. Together, after evading a full-blown massacre, they decide to hide in a supply room for four whole days. Fed up of having to eat out of cans and piss into buckets, they finally come out to find the streets of Moscow almost entirely deserted, save for the invisible aliens; these images recall Danny Boyle’s zombie horror “28 Days Later" – well, if it were a pile of shit and filled with invisible aliens. Our five protagonists also discover that the aliens cannot see through glass (erm, what?) and cause electrical objects to suddenly switch on when close to them – our protagonists must use this information to evade the intergalactic beings as they attempt to find the Russian military submarine rumoured to contain survivors.

There are, at the very least, three major problems with “The Darkest Hour.” The first is that the script, written by first-time screenwriter Jon Spaihts, is not only utterly terrible but also wreaks of the sort of self-satisfied smugness that would fit very nicely into a typical Aaron Sorkin script. Spaihts clearly strives for sharp, crafty, quick-witted dialogue, particularly in the first twenty minutes or so, but finds himself falling flat on his self-important face every single time a character opens their mouth – with such little wit and grasp of character, this guy is more Aaron Suckin’ than Aaron Sorkin.

The second major problem is that there is not one character in the entire film whom we are given a single reason to care about. This is a common problem that constantly damages films of this sort; the protagonists are scared and are in serious peril, yet we, as viewers, are left with the ability to feel nothing but indifference towards their fate. In fact, there is only one character out of the five protagonists in “The Darkest Hour” who is given a clear and distinctive personality, and this is the one who is so clearly going to die at some point that he may as well have a blue-and-red bullseye tattooed on his forehead.

The third major problem is the film’s severe lack of imagination, although I’m sure Mr Spaihts believes he has completely rejuvenated the entire alien invasion subgenre all on his own. Yes, the film is set in Moscow as opposed to a big American city filled with towering skyscrapers and yellow cabs. Yes, the aliens can only be detected when they venture near electrical equipment. Yes, the aliens are almost completely invisible. And yes, they are physically incapable of seeing through a double-glazed window. But that’s all there is to say about “The Darkest Hour;” everything else is run-of-the-mill alien invasion schlock we saw occur in “Independence Day,” “Battle: Los Angeles,” “Vanishing on 7^th Street” and bloody “Skyline” – outside of a few silly gimmicks, there is nothing new on display here.

I do believe that the film’s director, Chris Gorak, has talent. Gorak made his directorial debut in 2006 with a very intense and gripping doomsday thriller called “Right at Your Door.” What has happened with “The Darkest Hour,” his second film, is probably just an unfortunate case of a clunky script – if so, I trust he shall pick his future projects much more wisely, in particular avoiding those that include invisible fucking aliens.

3/10