Cast: Emile Hirsch, Rachael Taylor, Olivia Thirlby, Max Minghella
Director: Chris Gorak
Ratings: 1/5
It is a movie made only for the sake of a sequel
By Priyanka Ketkar
Gone are the days when movies used to have a beginning, middle and an end. Gone are the days when movies based on "world devastation" not only created enough fear and anticipation but also showed how that one person or that one group can save the world from destruction. Like in the movie Jurassic Park, even though in the end one small egg left unnoticed, obviously for the sake of a sequel, everything else that threatened the man's existence was properly taken care of. But those days are gone and movies like In Time and the latest movie directed by Chris Gorak- The Darkest Hour are proof enough of those bygone times.
An alien attack and five lone survivors. That is the basic theme of this movie. But maybe they are not alone after all, maybe there are more survivors like them. With this one hope in mind and the strong urge to destroy these strange beings, four people set out on a journey... a journey to save the world? Not really... It is actually a journey to survive. Who will survive this attack? After all, it is indeed the survival of the fittest or is it really? Nope. Here, staying alive has nothing to do with being fit or unfit, but it is about being smart.
For Emile Hirsch, who has done such superb roles like the one in the movie Into The Wild, this movie looks like a mistake. He has acted well but he is far more talented than to be acting in such movies. Olivia Thirlby and Max Minghella have done a good job while Rachael Taylor is passable. Dato Bakhtadze as Sergei is comical and unnecessary. The rest of the cast is alright and otherwise well, it is just those invisible aliens.
There is neither much to admire in this movie, nor much to criticize. The movie builds a very good tension but then it fails at maintaining it. The director doesn't lead us to any conclusion and everybody can guess that this has been done on purpose, for the sake of a sequel of course. You come out of the theatre feeling unaccomplished, as the movie leads nowhere... It is an absolute dead-end.