Secondhand Reviews: "The Darkest Hour"

Rated PG-13 for violence and a little strong language.

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Some of you might be familiar with the term "Lizard-Brain Entertainment". That's the sort of film (or other art form) that just completely bypasses the intellectual reasoning capacities of the brain to decide what is and is not quality entertainment and appeals directly to some primitive racial memory still lingering in the human brain from the early days of time when humans were not exactly as evolved as they later became. The sort of thing that's designed to make a person respond "Hey, that was cool to watch!" and not a lot else. If you're wondering, there's a reason for me to be going into this at the beginning of this review: that being that there's a whole lot of lizard-brain entertainment on display in "The Darkest Hour", and it's done quite well. It's true that not a lot else is, but in the end that was enough.

A couple of American businessmen, Sean (Emile Hirsch) and Ben (Max Minghella) are in Moscow to present their latest creation and hopefully make a fortune. But when that goes haywire, and they encounter a couple of female tourists from the west in a local bar, they at least hope to have a good time on the town that night before having to return home. They're not so lucky: a strange alien force chooses that very night to invade cities around the globe, including Moscow: an alien invasion force of creatures made of pure energy that proceed to suck up and absorb all electrical power as they feed. And humans can't even touch them without disentegrating, nor can conventional weapons. How can they possibly be stopped?

The story at its core is basically every other alien invasion story ever filmed, and we might as well face it, most of the characters (with a few minor exceptions) are rather colorless, because after all this movie isn't really about the characters. But, man, is it ever filled with great moments of spectacular lizard-brain entertainment! I still remember the local movie theatre (originally the Vogue and later called the Stage Seven) from when I was about 10 to 12 years old, which would often have matinees for the younger crowd on Saturdays of the late 50's/early 60's monster movies, often the alien invader type films. Even then, I suppose I knew they weren't the greatest ever made, but I always had fun watching them, and I enjoyed "The darkest hour" on exactly that same level (and I haven't been 10 to 12 years old in several centuries).

The aliens, when they manifest themselves visually, are incredibly cool. I loved the fact that they can be present without being detected in objects like street lights that use electric power, so you can rarely be sure when one is around until (often) it can be too late. A lot of the battles between the humans and the aliens (once our human allies figure out a weapon they can use effectively against them) are amazing to watch, and in particular a sequence in which one of the businessmen rescues a woman trapped on a bus and as they leave in what they think is safety an alien suddenly manifests itself, forcing them to fight it... wow. THAT'S how you should do action scenes.

Of course, as I said, the film suffers from a not all that spectacular story, and the kind of stereotypical treatment of women that was typical of the late 1950's, when this kind of movie was at its low-budget peak (but is IS a different world now, you know). On the other hand, I do like the way the movie depicts the Russians as being just as patriotic as any American and eager to fight and die if need be for their homeland... even refusing to leave when it would be convenient for them because they can't abandon their country to these bizarre creatures. But that's dangerously close to actual characterization, and there's not too much of that overall.

So I'm giving a "thumbs up" to a movie that my intellectual film critic mental faculties can clearly see has more than a few defects, because for about 90 minutes or so it made me feel like I was 12 years old again watching the kinds of movies I loved at that time and enjoying it in exactly the same way. That's not much of a reason to recommend a film, I suppose, and if you aren't as in touch with your inner 12 year old as I seem to be (and you're probably better off if you're not) then it probably won't appeal to you. But I had fun.

Maybe I just need therapy?