The Darkest Hour
Without question, the dullest movie of 2011.
The only thing wrong with The Darkest Hour is the title. Just to be fair to the general public, it would have made more sense to call it The Most Hopeless Hour You Can Spend in a Theater or Can My Life Get Any More Hopeful Until the Republicans End Their Challenge for the Presidency?
Don’t get me wrong, as I truly do love good horror films, but they must at least be minimally challenging, something that is profoundly lacking in this wasted cinematic farce. For example, Aaron Eckhart’s Battle Los Angeles was wildly condemned this past year, but at least it had aliens that were nearly as despicable as their human targets.
This sad film literally has nothing going for it other than a collection of scantily clad, hot women and young men whose principal hope in life is to get laid after knocking down a couple shots of vodka in Moscow. Clueless lives are interrupted with the invasion of some crazed, environmentally challenged aliens, whose principal goal is to destroy mankind.
The real question about this hapless film is why Emile Hirsch decided to star in it in the first place. What on Earth has happened to the star of such memorable films as Into the Wild (2007) and Milk (2008)?
While fate dictates that I leave everyone to their own conclusion, the simple fact is that there have been several films released towards the end of the past year that were largely praised by critics, yet truly suffered on the screen. As I have pointed out previously, Martin Scorcese’s Hugo was visually stunning and overwhelmingly tedious; Melancholia was Director Lars von Trier’s attempt at boring us to death; Almodovar’s The Skin I Live In was an extraordinarily well done film that suffered from the sad fact that it was also one of the most malevolently decadent films of the past ten years; and the wildly praised The Descendants had a lot going for it if you could overlook the fact that Clooney’s character was a wealthy, selfish husband/father who became an instant hero solely because his previously ignored wife was left dying in a hospital.
As I left this film, I was reminded of the ridiculous saying from a completely inept lawyer from an old T.V. series entitled “Petrocelli” (1974-1976). Professionally incompetent, our star also had a way of offending intelligent women with the occasional comment, “You’re dull, baby.” Dull was the inevitable highlight of this film.
