Dim and dullBy John DeSando, WCBE's "It's Movie Time," "Cinema Classics," and "On the Marquee"
The Darkest hour is the worst science fiction film I have seen in 2011. It is leagues behind The Adjustment Bureau and Source Code, both brainy adventures. Transformers, as a kindred alien flick, is much more imaginative, to say the least.
Perhaps I should be mentioning Another Earth and Melancholia as well, both thoughtful tales about the emergence of a planet in our skyline. Enough already. The Darkest Hour is a derivative alien invasion film with no originality and not even arresting cinematography of its exotic location, Moscow. Like the flat photography, the picture has nothing to say about humanity and worsens its delivery by having invisible aliens that when assuming the form of fireballs, disintegrate humans upon touch.
Sean (Emile Hirsch) and Ben (Max Minghella) are software engineers who have been outplayed for a contract by a Russian rival, Skylar (Joel Kinnaman). The boys drown their eorrows in a trendy bar until, after at least a half hour of dullness, we get marauding aliens picking off the less fortunate than the heroes.
After too much time racing around Moscow with a couple of ladies from the bar and Skyler, Sean devises a means of attacking the visitors. The only interesting part of the film occurs when the group enlists the aid of rogue Russian vigilantes, cleaner versions of the bikers in Road War Warrior and its post-apocalyptic imitations. "Interesting" because it's one of cinemas only instances of Russians and the West working together.
Surprising it is that one of the film's producer s, Timur Bekmambetov, of Night Watch and Day Watch fame, couldn't revive this moribund mumbo jumbo.
Cut to the end, after numerous set pieces that could have come from any other chase-centered adventure, and the survivors slip away in a submarine that woefully reminds me of the sublime On the Beach, directed by Stanley Kramer and starring Gregory Peck. Now that's science fiction of the highest order, on a par with the best of Twilight Zone.
As it is, The Darkest Hour is dark indeed, as in dim and dull.
John DeSando co-hosts WCBE 90.5's It's Movie Time, Cinema Classics, and On the Marquee, which can be heard streaming at http://publicbroadcasting.net/wcbe/ppr/index.shtml and on demand at http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/wcbe/arts.artsmain He is also a film critic for Fox 28. Contact him at JDeSando@Columbus.RR.com