I think I have repeated this more than often. If you give me a good alien movie, I would slaver on it in no time. ‘The Darkest Hour’ is indeed a treat for me, and after a long time (the last good alien invasion movie was- Battle L.A.), did I get to see such a nice car-crushing and building-busting worldwide destruction movie. Not maybe worldwide, it would be too much of a stretch, as this movie is based mostly inMoscowbut I can assure you, if you are like-minded, you would love this one.
Superb Cinematography- it was indeed a first time that I get to see destruction based in a country other than America– not that I am complaining!! I never knew thatMoscowwas such a beautiful city, and it indeed looked a little bit creepy when the entire city was laid to smithereens by our next door, friendly aliens.
Two software programmers come toRussiato sell their Tourist Networking Site to a Russian Company and dream of making big bucks from it. What they find on arriving atMoscowis that someone else had already stolen their idea. Disillusioned, they hit a bar, where they find fellow compatriots fromAmericaand from there the plot begins to sizzle…
Abrupt, sudden and to an immediate effect- the worldwide power is cut off (stereotypical). When the people get out of their houses to see what the hell is happening (curiosity kills the cat!), what they actually see is an Aurora Borealis like splendid light show adorning the sky. But this luminous entity does not actually stay glued in the sky- it disperses and comes down on the earth surface. When one cop tries to touch and gauge what actually it is, BANG- just like that he is discharged into powdery form, leaving behind traces of ash.
And from then on our protagonists fumble across the streets trying hard to save their asses from the luminous yet invisible- energy whips in a dead city. Halfway through, though you know that a lot of people associated with this troupe are going to die, you are not quite prepared for a few sudden and cruelly awesome deaths.
Though the action scenes are awesome, they are disparate and few. Battle L.A. had loads of such alien-human skirmishes and it boasted a lot of fire power, what we actually see here is that though aliens are indeed formidable and super-powerful, they are not shown in huge numbers.
At the end of the movie, I felt a nagging desire and I indeed wanted some more, but I don’t think the budget of the movie allowed it. I also wanted to see the alien properly once its energy shield is rendered inoperable (though the face closely resembled the Alien in ‘Aliens and Predators’, but the rotating circular tentacled structure added to its dark aura) but maybe the directors closely followed Alfred Hitchcock when he said ‘There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it’.
Inspite of all the shortcomings, I loved this movie. Though the story is mostly stereotypical, the allure of the invisible aliens, the corresponding fight for survival by the homo-sapiens and most of all -the superior shoot inMoscow, leaves you feeling extremely good.
It is indeed a one time watch.
P.S.:- You may be feeling that I always write goody-goody stuff regarding any movie that I had ever seen, but you must know that I don’t mention about the movies that I strongly disliked (like ‘Sinbad and the Mummy’- which I watched just last week!!!).
Alienman 