The Darkest Hour

Director: Chris Gorak
Starring: Emile Hirsch, Olivia Thirlby, Max Minghella
Time Out rating:

After Skyline and Battle: Los Angeles, does the world really need another high-concept, low-rent, alien-invasion movie? Russian-US co-production The Darkest Hour attempts to shake things up by sending its fresh-faced American cast off to Moscow, just in time to face a plague of wispy, ethereal energy spheres from space, bent on sapping our precious natural resources. But there’s literally nothing here that works: the SFX are limp, the acting is dire and director Chris Gorak seems to be fighting a losing battle with the concept of narrative logic. Worst of all is the appalling script: try taking a shot of whisky every time a character states the bleeding obvious (‘They killed them all!’, ‘They’re coming this way!’). It might be the only way to make it through this slack, senseless sci-fi snoozer.

The Darkest Hour opens at Cinem@rt Shinjuku (late show only) and Cinem@rt Roppongi on December 1