Chris Gorak, who is better known for his Art Direction in
the late nineties, directs this Science Fiction invasion tale of survival and
from the start you can see he struggles with character development and plot. The
actors come across poorly in a scatter ball script which takes two potential entrepreneurs
Emile Hirsch and Max Minghella who hitch up with two tourists Olivia Thirlby and
Rachael Taylor on a desperate trek across Moscow. This seems a randomly bizarre
setting but yet visually is striking and this is where the film demonstrates
some strength. The thirty million pound budget was obviously spent on some
impressive CGI which at times is visually effective and then disappointingly blocky
and unimaginative. Particularly impressive are the huge mining columns that the
aliens plunge into the cityscape and the way the human prey are vaporised, but diversely
the aliens’ themselves are too simplistic when we catch a glimpse of them
through their rotating shields.
Olivia Thirlby (No Strings Attached) is the only actor who
comes out of the misdirection with any credibility and the short appearance of
a little known actress, Veronika Vernadskaya who is actually Russian, adds some
sense of reality to the location. There are some unpredictable aspects which
just about move the plot on but the only real highlights in, the aptly named,
The Darkest Hour are elements of the art direction and it falls short in all
other categories.
34/100
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