The Darkest Hour

When Independence Day came out in 1996 and became one of the biggest blockbusters because of its eye-candy special effects, over blown story and cheesy lines, it paved the way for Hollywood to create a whole new genre that would be at par with Godzilla and other city-destroying monsters. However, it has been more than 16 years since Independence Day and yet Hollywood seemed to have forgotten to generate fresh new ideas out of the concept and what we have with The Darkest Hour is a mixture of every single Alien-invading movies that you have seen with the lack of pizzazz or even ingenuity.

The Darkest Hour follows the premise of 4 teenagers who met in Moscow, Russia and happened to be, in all unlucky circumstance, in an alien invasion. They struggle to survive. They survived. They knew how to beat those nasty aliens. Two were dead. And if you can do the math, you would eventually know there are two survivors and according to the rule book on alien invasion/horror/zombie movies: ONLY TWO OF YOUR CHARACTERS WILL EVENTUALLY SURVIVE (or even one depending on the number of people involved, but usually, the sexually-inclined character get their heads chopped off). The Darkest Hour is not an exception to such rule.

One of the reasons I went to see this movie is that the trailer made a great promise that this will be an interesting film since it features a rather mysterious villain. However, once again, trailers can be misleading at times. The Darkest Hour has the laziest plot there is. It borrows themes from War of the Worlds, down to Independence day that I felt like I was in a "SCARY MOVIE" - movie. The purpose of the aliens invading our world is also pathetic. If the aliens have extensive research on our biological composition, they could have not messed up with the microwave (SPOILER!!). The way how the movie ended was also a complete dismay. The resolution was out of the blue. "BITIN" is the right word and it feels so right to use it in Tagalog.

The movie is a waste of Emile Hirsch's acting abilities. If this is Emile's defibrillator to a dying career, well, this movie gave him a 30cc bolus of Potassium Chloride that would completely kill him and his career.

It is a good thing I did not pay the extra 140php for the 3D version, my dismay would have been greater. The Darkest Hour is a waste of your 1 hour and 30 minutes. Go home and pop in your War of the Worlds DVD and surely you will have a better story and over-all entertainment experience.

GRADE: D


trailer