The Darkest Hour and a Half
Spoiler Alert:
I shall be examining The Darkest Hour minutely, giving every scene a second look to determine if it’s wasted time, or the time of your life. Read on only if you have already seen The Darkest Hour, or don’t plan to.
Judging by the smoke, Emile is trying to think
0:03:51 Emile Hirsch being adorably obnoxious with a Russian cougar flight attendant. Life lesson: Flight attendants sleep with passengers in Economy but marry passengers from First.
0:06:10 You’d have thought the young men would’ve decided why they were going to Russia before they flew there. Instead, they wait until the cab ride after the flight and on the way to the meeting to discuss the purpose of their visit. (They’re software developers trying to find Russian investors for their app.)
Youth Hostiles
Bad exposition, bad. If this exposition was a dog, it’d be put to sleep. If it were a horse, it’d be put out of our misery. If it were a egg, it’d be rotten. If it were cheese, it’d be…you know it…cheesy.
0:06:11 The app is called The Globe Trot. Should be The Globe Trots.
0:07:50 The Russians are stealing our boys’ idea. #Communism
0:08:36 Enter Olivia Thirlby who has a wonderful surname and a blonde Aussie who I don’t recognize and is in the film because she’s blonde. If this film is American R, the blonde dies quickly. If it’s American PG-13 we may have to support her for the entire film.
“Let me just take a quick pic of my vadge first.”
0:08:49 A shot of the moon with an ominous noise to remind us this is supposed to be an action film. And, so far, this is very easy to forget.
09:00:00 I don’t usually like “rhythm and hop”, or whatever this is, but I like this song. Static Revenger & Richard Vission ft. Luciana: I Like That
0:12:36 Our four protagonists meet up in a bar. Olivia gets text messages from her mum. That’s the extent of the action so far.
0:13:32 The film finally begins. Power goes out in the bar, everyone goes to the street and there’s a pee coloured aurora slowly spreading across the sheet of night.
She’s controlling it with her pee brain
0:14:12 With all electricity still out, flowers of golden light drift slowly down to earth. They’re so beautiful and fragile looking that they must be evil killing machines of mass destruction.
Rain of Terror
0:15:30 One alights and a Russian copper touches it with his nightstick and disintegrates into dust–well, all except for his shoe which is flung at the cop car for effect. Panic at the disco.
016:05 Young people are falling apart and breaking down.
016:51 We learn fire hurts the creature. How do we learn this? A Russian bartender makes a Molotov Cocktail. #irony
All right, who ordered the Jager Bomb?
0:17:14 The bad Russian who stole the kids’ app (see 0:07:50) is not just bad because he’s a thief and a Russian, but he just locked his top model girlfriend out of the disco and watched the energy enemy disintegrate her. She broke up.
Pieces of Ass
0:18:37 Olivia Thirlby opens the door to let in the evilest Russian thief. Maybe because she now knows he’s single.
0:19:15 The screen goes black. I catch myself waiting for an advert. That’s how good this film is.
0:21:09 On Tuesday, and more than a minute too late, they decide to venture out of the kitchen. They step through the door and onto a really poorly made Hollywood set.
0:23:25 Olivia Thirlby decides to take off her shoes and walk barefoot through the human remains coating the pavement like snowfall.
0:25:02 They walk all the way to the middle of a bridge before noticing there’s a navy boat stuck in the middle of it? WTF!?
“At least we can still jump the shark.”
0:26:21 A dog runs barking across Red Square. They should call him “Canary”, because he’s going to show the team of five where the aliens are.
Dog Bytes
0:27:00 Didn’t take me long to be right.
0:27:30
Where did it go?
–asks the friend about the enemy who’s invisible
Well, at least he’s good with computers.
0:28:47
Is it gone?
–asks the friend about the enemy who’s invisible
Even funnier is Emile’s response…
I think so.
WTF?
0:30:24 I forgot to mention the motley crew is trying to get to the American Embassy where they no doubt expect God to save them.
0:31:28 They’ve sussed that the creatures activate electric appliances, so they’re collecting light bulbs and have decided only to travel at night. In honour of this, the director placed a dark lens over the camera he’s using to shoot in daylight.
“Wait, I have an upside down idea!”
0:33:21 Emile and Olivia Thirlby decide to loot the mall, but it’s OK because they’re wearing necklaces with light bulbs attached to them as warning devices. Brilliant fashion.
0:34:13 WTF?! The enemy energy could detect heat signatures before, but now all Emile has to do is pose like a mannequin in a shop window and the enemy just breezes past? So much for intelligent life forms on other planets. Or working on this film.
0:34:48 It seems the heat detectors don’t work through glass. Much like the director’s cameras.
0:36:46 The American Embassy is more toast than breakfast on the Titanic.
There goes the neighbourhood
0:38:11 The girls have to choose between two level headed young men who have led them safely so far, or the amoral Russian who just accidentally shot off a full clip of bullets from a machine gun he’s carrying even though they know the enemy is impervious to bullets and who, in addition, they witnessed kill his girlfriend to save his own arse. Despite all this, the blonde still hesitates before following Olivia Thirlby and Emile. Slut likes White Russians.
0:40:39 They find a walkie talkie in a bird cage. (No, really.)
0:44:37 Two energy enemies kill Skyler (Russian chap) by eating his bottom half and top half and meeting in the middle. Like spaghetti in Lady and the Tramp. Romanticked off.
0:47:57 They find a blonde Russian teenage girl and an old geek living in a cage. Normal, he’s chicken and she’s a bird.
Russian women make their own tampons
0:49:23 The wire around the apartment means the energy enemy can’t ‘smell’ the people inside of it. What I smell is this film, because it stinks.
0:51:07 They play the walkie talkie and it talks about submarines picking up survivors. The director generously replaces the dark lens filter over a daytime shoot so the group can make a break for where they think the sub will be.
0:51:38 The teenage girl asks Blonde Aussie and Olive Thirlby to help her scavenge for supplies, so the trio reluctantly step outside the safe zone. Meanwhile, the gents are nowhere to be seen. Chivalry isn’t dead, it’s hiding under the bed trembling.
That awkward moment you see someone else wearing your survival outfit, and she survives better in it than you
0:54:25 The enemy approaches the ladies. The Teeny Russian, who’s survived weeks in the building, tells the ladies to follow her. The Australian girl refuses. Unfortunately, she doesn’t speak “logic”.
0:55:40 The blonde lets the enemy into the safe cage, Olivia can’t shut the door in time and the guys don’t leave the kitchen even when they heard the screaming girls run in. While the women hide under a glass coffee table, Sergie shoots the enemy with his invention but only wings it, so it eats him but leaves the gun for the others. So much WTF, so little time.
0:56:02 The Aussie gets disintegrated when she abandons her safe hiding place for no reason known to man or blonde.
This film isn’t the only thing that sucks
1:02:53 After the absolute god awfulest American movie emotional appeal, a Russian rag tag gang decide to risk everything they have to see the Americans to a submarine that they have no proof exists. Someone should have informed Reagan of how susceptible Russkies are.
1:05:05 In the subway, they scatter a dozen little light bulbs (that don’t break?) over the floor. When they see there is an enemy approaching, Teeny Russian decides to wait for them to trap her because WTF. Then, instead of jumping to safety, she simply stands there and waits for the American friend to save her. Is she Russian or French?
1:05:10 The American friend does save her, but he disintegrates in the end. And the other places, too.
Going to pieces
1:06:51 They find a boat and let it drift on the river until Teeny Russian spies the sub.
1:12:04 Somehow Olivia Thirlby ended up on the other side of the city after falling off the boat. Instead of washing up on shore beside where she fell, she washed up 5 miles inland!? But it’s OK because Emile made another speech to convince the Russian sub commander to wait while he rescued her. Russians are apparently suckers for American speeches.
1:17:25 Emile finds Olivia, and she calls to him so he can find her among a field of buses but she won’t lift her head so he can find her. She just sits on the floor and waits for him, as though she hopes he’ll move in with her there.
1:19:16 In the bus, an energy enemy picks up Olivia Thirlby but doesn’t kill her because WTF. The energy the enemy emits started the bus and Olvia Thirlby is pounding on the accelerator saying she can’t stop it, so perhaps the energy enemy kept her alive to laugh at her driving skills.
Watch out behind you, Olivia Thirlby!
1:23:59 The film ends with them not dying. A horrible pop song that is a waste of good musical notes winds this film down. I need to find a way to wash my brain clean of this disgustingly rancid hideous turd of a film. Perhaps shocking therapy with a Taxi Driver ride or Inglourious Basterds hookup will bring back my senses.
“Don’t flush!”
Tally Ho’
- WTF!?’s: 16, and I rounded down.
- When to Follow: Should you ever catch yourself wondering if Emile’s performance in Into the Wild was anything more than some lucky fluke.
- What To Feedback:
Left Over WTF (Way Too Funny) Photos
Watch out, here come the reviews!
“We’re ready, bring on the boobies.”
“My career is going off track!”
The Grave of Emile Hirsch’s Career
I’d give my right arm not to have watched The Darkest Hour
What to Follow-Up
WTF!? Watch the Film: House at the End of the Street
WTF!? Watch the Film: Battle for Los Angeles
WTF!? Watch the Film: Push
WTF!? Watch the Film: I Am Number 4
