The Darkest Hour Makes You Want To Visit Russia–Not During The Apocalypse Though

March 02 20:12 2012 by Alexei Rivera Print This Article

Aliens, we’ve quite seen them all haven’t we? Some were green, some were grey, some liked music, and some of them shot lasers from three-legged tripod robots. But have they ever been invisible? Probably not. Such is the premise for a new movie called “The Darkest Hour” which pits five survivors against an invisible alien invasion – in the middle of Moscow, Russia. Why the fancy setting? Maybe the filmmakers really like the Soviet location – or maybe they just weren’t able to get a chance to film in New York or other locales. Either way, that’s where we find ourselves in The Darkest Hour.

In modern day Russia, Sean & Ben (Emile Hirsh & Max Minghella) have just arrived from the United States to pitch a social network for frequent travellers. However, their ideas have apparently been stolen by Skyler (Joel Kinnaman), which force the two to spend their time at a local bar where they meet up with Natalie & Anne (Olivia Thirlby & Rachael Taylor). Soon after, some lights appear in the sky and slowly fall down into the ground. After all the awe and spectacle surrounding it, chaos unfolds as these lights have turned out to be very hostile – and invisible to boot. The four – including their competitor Skyler – find solace in the bar’s basement, and hole up for a while until their supplies run out.

Stepping outside, they find themselves in your typical post-apocalyptic world. Their prerogative – uninformed or misguided as it may be – was to find a way through Moscow and somehow get back home. Trudging along, the slowly find clues as to how to avoid or be warned of the remaining invisible invaders, and this leads them to meet a Russian girl (Veronika Ozerova) and Sergei (Dato Bakhtadze), an electrician. In his lab they find out how to shield themselves from the aliens’ vision, as well as develop an experimental weapon that may or may not work against the invading aliens.

So how does humanity survive an invisible enemy invasion? You’ll have to check the movie out to find out.

The Darkest Hour sounds like a typical creature-feature film in paper, but succeeds on its own right with proper CG effects and decent acting. The 89-minute film does get a lot of mileage with its deserted Moscow setting, providing an interesting backdrop to our characters. Speaking of which, there’s not too much development in that department – probably because the filmmakers weren’t afraid to just as easily kill them off. Then again, in an apocalyptic movie with only a few survivors involved, you won’t exactly have other characters to kill off other than the main cast. Its worth a watch for the Moscow bits, though the story itself is worth a nod or two just for the “invisible alien” concept.