The concept of Alien based Sci Fi Horror hybrids like THE DARKEST HOUR 3D is nothing remotely new, but RIGHT AT YOUR DOOR director Chris Gorak at least gives a fresh, fast-paced new spin on a familiar concept and is all the better for it. THE DARKEST HOUR 3D often calls to mind the likes of PULSE (Wes Craven, 2006), SKYLINE and 28 DAYS LATER and is all the more effective for it. For a film that didn’t receive any Critic Screenings in America for fears of the studio not having any faith in the production is soon dashed as it’s nowhere near as bad as it should be and the end result is an enjoyably tacky Sci Fi Horror B movie yarn. Best friends Sean (Emilie Hirsch, SPEED RACER, LORDS OF DOGTOWN) and Ben (Max Mingella, THE SOCIAL NETWORK, THE IDES OF MARCH), are travelling to Moscow on a business deal-breaker and meets up with American Natalie (Olivia Thirlby, JUNO, THE WACKNESS) and Australian Anne (Rachael Taylor, TRANSFORMERS, MAN-THING), and suddenly all the lights and power goes down, plaguing the city into total darkness and cuts off from the outside world. It turns out that invisible pulse life form aliens are at work, with a point three plan for taking over the world and the group must band together to come up with some of the most strangest strategies just to stay alive. The group also includes Skyler (Joel Kinnaman) and Vika (Veronika Ozerova). THE DARKEST HOUR 3D won’t be to everyone’s taste (for completely different reasons, mainly the usual non-noticeable 3D), and most people will absolutely hate it. But with these sort of films you have to take it with a huge pint of salt and looks beyond the negative stuff and there’s some positive stuff to be found, although most people will disagree. THE DARKEST HOUR 3D is effectively well made, makes great use of the isolated, gritty, dusty streets which adds a visual atmospheric sheen to the dull surroundings and the CG effects are impressive, surprisingly considering it does rip off lots of far better ALIEN/WAR OF THE/END OF THE WORLD Sci Fi epics. Whilst I did enjoy it tones and kinds of thinks of it as a guilty pleasure, the lack of any real excitement is a major letdown, as is the cast, who don’t bring much conviction or emotional depth or content to their tedious roles; Rachael Taylor by far gives the worst performance of all, but overall it doesn’t stop the pure enjoyment as you never expect anything less and certainly nothing more with these sort of films, but that really doesn’t matter as I had a real blast watching it throughout. Like I said, if your kind of cliched guilty pleasure is a tension-free, badly acted, and above all tediously overblown mess of a Sci Fi Horror B movie, then THE DARKEST HOUR 3D is for you.
RICK
