For action’s sake
Chris Gorak’s visually dazzling The Darkest Hour creates a good ambience but lacks credibility

After Ridley Scott’s Alien in 1992, the subject of foreign creatures has grown by leaps and bounds. They seem to be coming out of the wood, trying to be as different as possible. The latest The Darkest Hour attempts the same but succeeds more with the ambience than the story.

Being a US-Russian co-production directed by American Chris Gorak, it is virtually the Americanisation of Moscow. There’s no Kremlin (extinct like Communism), and in its place, hordes of fun-loving, partying young folks, brave soldiers frequenting malls and nightclubs, McDonalds and Starbucks. And since Gorak did the art direction for films like Minority Report and Fight Club, it isn’t at all surprising that he uses those skills in getting the setting correct.

But where Gorak fails is with the story. The aliens here are interlinked with electromagnetic waves in some way but cannot see through glass but who set off electronic items on contact. They can, however, be killed with normal bullets and shattered into hundreds of rock-like bits. It’s razzle-dazzle all the way, with no connecting thread and action for action’s sake.

With no connecting thread, the narrative of The Darkest Hour falls flat

The humans are represented by four Americans (naturally), two well-matched couples and a Swede, who wastes no time in eliminating one couple. The Russians follow later, and it is here that the film looks like gaining impetus but that just doesn’t happen. The humans, who pop up orange-like on the aliens’ radar, are sucked up by these light-blobs for their precious metals. It may be visually dazzling but form clearly drowns credibility.

In a cast of virtually unknowns, the action is supposed to be the hero. But the narrative falls flat. How can a film so heavy with form lack even a skeleton of a story. But that’s what The Darkest Hour ends up despite a plethora of light blobs. In one word — avoidable.

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