# THE DARKEST HOUR (2D Blu-ray; Summit Entertainment)



## Osage_Winter (Apr 8, 2010)

*Studio: Summit Entertainment
Disc/Transfer Specifications: 1080p High Definition; 2.40:1 (Original Aspect Ratio 2.39:1); Region 1 (U.S.) Release Tested
Video Codec: MPEG-4 MVC
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Tested Audio Track: English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
Director: Chris Gorak
Starring Cast: Emile Hirsch, Olivia Thirlby, Max Minghella, Rachael Taylor



PLOT ANALYSIS:*

I honestly didn’t expect much going into this, but …was _The Darkest Hour_ just terrible. In a genre that seems to have been defined by films such as _Cloverfield_ – that is, gathering a pack of twenty-somethings we really couldn’t care less about anyway and watching them succumb to “alien” attacks in different cities as they struggle to remain conscious enough to make it to their next Starbucks powwow – this has to be one of the worst, most mindless and rushed-to-screen examples to come out of late. Admittingly, I wanted to see this when it was released for the Christmas/New Year holiday season, as the clip depicting the German Shepherd and others being “blasted away” by an unseen energy ribbon of some kind just outside the Kremlin in Russia indeed seemed intriguing (not that I particularly enjoyed watching the dog disappear being the animal lover that I am – but the way I saw it, at least he wasn’t “harmed” or “injured” in any other sort of way). But, alas, like just about every other film I want to see theatrically, because of my ridiculously busy schedule, I missed it, forcing me to fall back on the possibility of receiving this title from my editor to review on either DVD or Blu-ray.

Popping in the Blu-ray Disc release of _The Darkest Hour_ last night, courtesy of the press folks at Summit Entertainment, I was glad we didn’t endure this steaming pile of horse dung in theaters amidst overpriced greasy popcorn buckets and idiots iTexting on their phones, or whatever it is these young morons do today to distract and ultimately annoy the adult population in locales such as restaurants and theaters; joining the ranks of the aforementioned _Cloverfield_ and other alien attack potboilers as of late such as _Skyline_ and _Battle: Los Angeles_, Chris Gorak’s _The Darkest Hour_ takes a slightly different approach to this genre and replaces large, physical alien beings and ships with those that take the form of electric energy ribbons of some kind – the notion is ridiculous and almost laughable, reminding me very much of that little tongue-in-cheek horror flick _Ghost in the Machine_, in which a killer made his way through electric currents to torment and kill his victims in creative, interesting and sometimes downright gruesome ways (who can forget the microwave “skin boiling” scene?). But at least _Ghost in the Machine_ had cute blonde babysitters showing their "assets" to the young kids they’re watching plus some crafty gore sequences – _The Darkest Hour_ had no such benefit in its corner. Instead, we get a group of, for the most part, nobody’s, set amidst the backdrop – for whatever reason – of Moscow, fending off invisible “attacks” by “alien energy” waves that alert their attackers of their presence by turning on lamps and light bulbs. You think I’m kidding? I’m not.

Forget the alien invasion thing for a minute – the subplot of this ridiculously non-creative, dull, lifeless joke of a sci fi film has two Facebook creator-types (i.e. two young egotistical d-bags totally ahead of their time and acting like jackholes because of it) that are taking their “virtual/cyber” creation to a firm in Russia to capitalize on their success with their marketing. One of these a-holes is a Jack Black lookalike from the top down, while the other…well…you know how it goes…because the _other_ guy is taller, he’s considered the “hotter” one by the girls they eventually meet in the story, and later connect with to survive the alien “attack” (which many of them don’t do so proficiently). 

Oh, my friends, you _do_ know the type – dressed in mismatched, ill-fitting clothes (one of them actually sporting a dress coat over a T-shirt) and looking like they just woke up from a six-day coke and booze bender completely disheveled and unkempt (but, of course, still “hot” and just “oh so delicious” to the idiotic female population of our current demographic), the two Facebook types make their cocky way to the boardroom in Russia where they are supposed to pitch their idea. To their dismay, when they get there, a meeting is already in full-swing, with some egotistical power suit type at the lead, informing the American boys their services are no longer needed, and that they came to Moscow for nothing. In a nutshell, this prick has stolen their idea and pitched the concept before they could get there. Enraged and embittered, the boys hit the Moscow nightlife circuit, looking to unwind and blow off some steam – and maybe a couple of minidresses clinging to the tight gyrating bodies of some really smokin’ Russian ladies of the night. 

A second subplot develops in which the two American “cyber entrepreneurs” meet up with two chicks in this nightclub they’re drinking in (it’s in this sequence that one of the two chicks says to her blonde friend how the taller of these two d-bags is the “hotter one” per usual social standards of our totally messed-up society) – and then all hell breaks loose. Suddenly, the lights of the club go out, the music stops and the young macho gents and sluts passing themselves off as “ladies” are whisked away by some sort of invisible energy attack – at first, the appearance of these “alien” invaders takes the form of buzzing, crackling electro-charges in shades of yellow. As they approach the people they want to “suck up,” the charges engulf them and the humans are turned into black, cloudy remnants quickly disintegrated altogether. The approach is different and unique, I suppose, compared to the other alien invasion stories over the years – and G-d help us if something like this ever happens – but it did remind me of the tripod attacks in _War of the Worlds_ when people were getting “zapped” and “calcified” by the alien rays as they stomped through that New Jersey town…still, there was something that just wasn’t…I don’t know…executed well enough here; where the tripod attack in _War of the Worlds_ was terrifying to watch, as were the scenes in _Independence Day_ when that came out, the “energy cloud” attacks in _The Darkest Hour_ just weren’t interesting or frightening to say the least. 

At any rate, if you’re still reading and are remotely interested, the two chicks and the two American pricks team up with another survivor of the alien attack at the club, the same a-hole who screwed them at the meeting for their product just earlier that day. The thing is, this colossal prick can understand and speak Russian, and they are all in dire need of that in their situation. The group makes their way to safety in the catacombs of the club, only to eventually climb back out to find nobody around – every person in the club has been wiped out by the energy attack, and it appears they may very well be the only people alive anywhere at all, as when they take to the empty Russian streets and eventually to the square outside the Kremlin, there is nothing but burned out buildings and cars to be seen. It’s in one of these sequences outside the Kremlin that a German Shepherd is seen running through the square, barking at an invisible entity in front of him – when suddenly he’s whisked away by the black and gold “energy cloud” that breaks him into microscopic elements and then makes him disappear. It’s also around this time in the plot that these idiots discover the connection between these “aliens” and electricity – so they devise some scheme to wear light bulbs around their necks so they can tell when the “aliens” are approaching (i.e. their light bulbs will illuminate). Got that?

Eventually, the band of survivors meet up with a band of other Russian survivors they run into who are heavily armed with specialty weapons and metal coverings to “fend off” these electrical alien attacks – even their horses are adorned with metal shields and the like. As another attack wave is poised to strike the now banded together groups, the Russian men the kids stumbled upon stand their ground, firing back at the “attackers” and eventually driving them back through varying weaponry and methods. From that point on, some ridiculous hijinks ensue, including the group running into a crazy Russian chick toting a gun who allows them to stay in her “hideout” created by some even nuttier, out-of-balance Russian electrician who has encased his apartment in steel bars and wire to protect himself and the girl from the “aliens.” (actually, I believe they run into this chick and the electrician _before_ running into the “military” guys with the guns and metal encasings, but does it really matter? This film sucked). Further, this electrician has theorized that these attacks are definitely based in electric current (like we didn’t know that already) and he has created a gun that can fire “microwaves” which disrupt the charge of these attackers, rendering them susceptible to gunfire and human attack/response. You know that in all these alien invasion tales, there has to be one human that discovers the weakness of the alien – no matter the technology or how advanced it is over ours – and comes up with a way to fight it/them…

If you’re still with me, the invading alien energy cloud things eventually make their way into the electrician’s secret “metal room” because one of the stupid chicks from the club who met up with our Facebook types didn’t lock the main gate properly – and our crazy bearded Russian electrician is swept away and disintegrated to the horror of the kids. They escape this particular attack and are again on the run through the barren streets of Moscow, only to stumble upon a message through a CB radio they found in a birdcage (I’m not kidding, nor did I understand this sequence at all) telling of a Russian nuclear submarine that will rendezvous with an American sub, proving there are other human survivors of this attack. Now, the goal is for these kids – including the prick from the business meeting that screwed the Facebook types over and the Russian girl who was staying with the electrician – to make it to this submarine in one of the rivers that run alongside Moscow. Along the way, the alien attacks cause the group to lose the cute blonde chick (one of the ones from the club scene in the beginning) as well as the business mogul a-hole (no big loss, whatsoever) and one of the two main characters (the “taller” of the two Facebook types, which the chicks found “hot”…remember?). 

Once making it to the sub, docked in the river, the band of survivors – now including the Russian guys they hooked up with who first fended off the attackers with their weapons and steel-encrusted chestplates and horses – theorize, as they watch yellow streaks of energy sucking “electricity” from ruined Russian buildings in the distance, that these “aliens” or whatever they are (more likely simply an unknown life form) have come, like many often do in these films, to our planet to suck our electricity resources dry as that’s what they “feed” on…and that we were simply in the way (humans, that is). Thus, they weren’t really here to kill or attack us – that was a side effect to feeling “interrupted” by us humans. 

Oh – there’s also an unexciting sequence towards the end when the shorter sole survivor of the Facebook-like duo (who has now suddenly won the admiration and respect of the sole surviving chick that originally thought he was too “short” and thus not as “hot” as his taller friend) must save that same chick from an energy attack aboard a commuter bus gone wild. Yes, I’m not joking. 

The final sequence of _The Darkest Hour_, depicting the “survivors” floating away in the Russian submarine towards the sunset while images of the aliens still sucking the electricity from the buildings around them was simply asinine, as it answers no questions about “stopping” these things, whatever they are, and leads us to believe that humankind is merely going to “allow” them to take whatever resources they want – even though they have turned most of the earth’s population into smoldering black ash – so long as they don’t attack the surviving humans. What? I could be off on that one…but you decide after watching this turd fest.

*VIDEO QUALITY ANALYSIS:*

As is always the case, this bomb that is _The Darkest Hour_ comes on Blu-ray in an absolutely jaw-dropping 1080p transfer – man, did I wish I had a much larger screen when we viewed this last night. The images sometimes bordered on the cartoonish they were so vivid and clear, with not a smidge of video noise or twitching. The leveling and imagery was absolutely rock-solid with spot-on rendering in all the right places – clothing detail, facial closeups, black levels…I haven’t seen a transfer this clean or rock-solid in quite awhile, even from major releasing studios. 

The only negatives I have to say about it is that (no fault of the presentation of course) I definitely wish I had watched this on a much larger screen – my display didn’t allow the expansiveness and immersion that this 2.40:1 transfer afforded, causing some crush in the darkest parts of the picture due to the massive letterboxing on my screen. It just didn’t wow me in terms of raw, hit-you-over-the-head immersion that only a massive display can deliver. Aside from some moments of pure black crush in the very darkest of sequences (only a bit to nit-pick if I had to, and I’m sticking with my above analysis of the spot-on black levels for the most part) and this aforementioned screen size dilemma, _The Darkest Hour_ was a knockout Blu-ray presentation in terms of video quality. 

*AUDIO QUALITY ANALYSIS:*

Featured in standard fare English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, the audio mix accompanying the visuals of _The Darkest Hour_ didn’t impress me as much as the video transfer did. For the most part, this was a ho-hum Master Audio track, with good envelopment and surround usage as well as solid, anchored dialogue, but there was a bit of a lean quality to the LFE and the track just didn’t knock me off my couch as I expected it to. I am possibly chucking this up to the budget they presumably made this film on, but I wasn’t that impressed by the audio. 

Spatial cues and soundstage usage was definitely aggressive and engaging, throwing the sounds of the “attackers” and their electrically zapping noises into all the channels around the room, and there was a solid sense of involvement from the sweet spot – but this wasn’t reference-caliber audio, at least to my ear. It left me wanting a bit more; I’d be interested in hearing everyone’s take on the Master Audio track of _The Darkest hour_.

*SUMMARY & RECOMMENDATIONS:*

In a sea of likeminded titles like _Battle: Los Angeles_ and _Skyline_, not to mention the JJ Abrams’ collaborated _Cloverfield_, _The Darkest Hour_ sits as probably the weakest example of this genre that has been exploding in popularity – I am seriously beginning to think the governments of the world are not telling us something they already know regarding an eminent alien invasion of some kind. That said, if you want to give this a rental, go ahead. It’s a short hour and a half of your life if there’s nothing else to rent, but it’s easy to see why this remained in theaters during Christmas/New Year for just a couple of weeks. I definitely won’t be buying it.

Let’s discuss *The Darkest Hour!*


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## dmiller68 (Apr 9, 2012)

Well I bought the 3D version. It is well done from the disk and 3D but the movie is hardly worth watching.


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## Osage_Winter (Apr 8, 2010)

dmiller68 said:


> Well I bought the 3D version. It is well done from the disk and 3D but the movie is hardly worth watching.


Hey Miller,

Thanks for the reply! Did you blind-buy this title? Did you see it...and then buy it, and if so, why if you didn't care for it? For the record, I agree about the film itself...


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## dmiller68 (Apr 9, 2012)

I did a blind buy. I read a lot of mixed reviews so I decided to do it. I also buy a lot of 3D titles just so I can fully utilize my purchase.  I do agree that out of these type of movies it was pretty weak in several areas. I did like the special effects though. It could have been a better movie if it had better writing and acting.


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## ozar (Feb 12, 2012)

Thanks for the review, _Osage_Winter_!

I've been rather curious about this one, so your time and effort with it have told me about all I need to know. I might bump it up a bit in my rental queue if I should run out of other stuff to watch.


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## Osage_Winter (Apr 8, 2010)

dmiller68 said:


> I did a blind buy. I read a lot of mixed reviews so I decided to do it. I also buy a lot of 3D titles just so I can fully utilize my purchase.  I do agree that out of these type of movies it was pretty weak in several areas. I did like the special effects though. It could have been a better movie if it had better writing and acting.


Well put, dmiller. Although, this would have been a title that I _definitely_ wouldn't have blind-bought...:unbelievable: :bigsmile:

Actually, I don't blind buy any titles unless I've seen them in theaters and know I am going to buy the Blu-ray when it's released (of course, that's not truly "Blind Buying," but you get my drift) i.e. the Marvel and DC adaptations (_Batman, Superman, Spider-Man, Iron Man, Hulk, Captain America_ etc.) and some other definites...:T


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## Osage_Winter (Apr 8, 2010)

ozar said:


> Thanks for the review, _Osage_Winter_!
> 
> I've been rather curious about this one, so your time and effort with it have told me about all I need to know. I might bump it up a bit in my rental queue if I should run out of other stuff to watch.


You are more than welcome, oz! Thank you for taking the time to read it and share your thoughts; indeed, skip this one unless there's nothing else to watch...:rolleyesno:


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## bxbigpipi (Feb 2, 2012)

I did a blind buy of this movie. I hear alot of people did not like this movie, but it wasn't that bad. I have seen way worse! Picture quality was very good.


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## Osage_Winter (Apr 8, 2010)

bxbigpipi said:


> I did a blind buy of this movie. I hear alot of people did not like this movie, but it wasn't that bad. I have seen way worse! Picture quality was very good.


Hey Bx!

Thanks for the reply -- wow...were you just getting around to watching this title (and blind buying it) NOW?


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## bxbigpipi (Feb 2, 2012)

No Osage I bought when it first came out but it was a blind buy. Still think it was a decent movie. What did you think of it?


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## bxbigpipi (Feb 2, 2012)

Never mind I'm sorry I got confused I know your opinion of the movie.


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## Osage_Winter (Apr 8, 2010)

bxbigpipi said:


> No Osage I bought when it first came out but it was a blind buy. Still think it was a decent movie. What did you think of it?


Oh...I wasn't sure why you had replied to this thread so late was all!

I didn't care for it, evidenced by the comments in the review.


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## Osage_Winter (Apr 8, 2010)

bxbigpipi said:


> Never mind I'm sorry I got confused I know your opinion of the movie.


No worries. :T


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