Do you know what a ‘mad lib’ is?  It’s a short story with many key words replaced with blanks that you are meant to fill in.  The creators of this film seem to have  taken a mad lib for horror and just filled in the blanks randomly: fill in the horrible creature’s strength here, fill in its weakness there. The film does not make a whole lot of sense and one leaves the theatre feeling confused and frustrated.

The Darkest Hour is an alien invasion action/horror movie.  Two best friends have created a social networking website that they plan to present in Russia in order to get financial backing. Why Russia, of all places, is unclear. Like many horror movies, at the beginning everything seems hunky dory until it all turns apocalyptic. Of course you know what’s coming because the beautiful, mostly unknown actors are  having such a good time.

The only positive about this film is it has a polished Hollywood look.  The special effects and cinematography are professionally done. But unfortunately that was the only positive. There was minimal character development and minimal explanation of the aliens’ minimal dialogue, and minimal 3D effects. Speaking of which, there doesn’t seem to be a good reason why the film was made in 3D, other than to attract a wider audience.  There is a trend to make more subtle 3D films after Avatar, but it was just unnecessary for this film.

The action was not memorable and it wasn’t scary (which is saying something since I scare extremely easily). You may have thought this would be a science fiction movie. But the science in the movie is laughable. The more that was explained, the more the audience was rolling their eyes. The film gives you a valuable lesson in the importance of the script writer: you should have a good one, which this film clearly didn’t!

The depiction of the characters and the decisions they made was perhaps the worst side of the film. There was no apparent motivation behind the actions of the characters.  This is a universe that rewards overly optimistic and, frankly, stupid people  In summary, the movie was predictable and predictably bad.

The Darkest Hour (11)
Dir: Chris Gorak; US horror, 2011, 89 min; Emile Hirsch, Olivia Thirlby, Max Minghella
Premiered January 12
Playing nationwide