Mini Blog
As I am a bit behind with reviews (but slowly catching up) I will mostly be doing Mini Blogs and Mini Reviews for the majority of what I've seen at the cinema in the last few weeks. With the odd exception.
Unfortunately for my readers who enjoy the more full bodied reviews, The Darkest Hour just isn't worthy of a full review, but that's not to say I hated it. Unlike two of my friends who saw it and said it was the worst film they'd ever seen. Upon hearing this I did almost quote David Bowie in Labyrinth and ask them what their basis for comparison was.
I think that one of the reasons I didn't hate it was that I already had quite low expectations for the film. I'd seen the trailer a number of times over the last few months (it seemed like it took forever to come out) and though I thought it looked like a semi fresh take on an old idea (aliens come to earth to kill everyone and steal our resources), I wasn't particularly fussed about seeing it. Then, to downplay my curiosity even more, one of my followers said it was a bit weak, the acting was weak and the alien design was "a bit gash". They said that on the whole, the film had a low budget feel.
So with my expectations plummeting towards an all time low, what did I do? I went to see it for myself of course! I think the low expectations helped as although I found Rachael Taylor's character super annoying, I didn't think it was all that bad. I thought the acting was what you'd expect from a film of this calibre, so not great but not super bad. I thought the initial alien design was original and would have been so much better if it had stayed being a bolt of electricity rather than being a standard looking creature in a protective shield. But then I'm not sure how the humans could have beat that kind of alien and saved the day. So my plot idea seemingly has as many holes as theirs.
Scary
Not so scary
Just goes to show that not being able to see something is sometimes (ok a lot of the time) scarier than when you see it because what you imagine is often much worse.
The 3D was only impressive when the alien was on-screen and even then I didn't think they'd made the most of it. I also didn't feel like they made the most out of the location. It felt very contrived that a bunch of young Americans happened to be in Russia at the same time for no reason at all. It seemed to me that the reason was that it was a cheap location to film in, with inexpensive actors, and that allowed the producers to blow the budget on the alien effects and the 3D. Which weren't that impressive anyway.
Not the worst film I've ever seen but by no means the best. 5 out of 10.
Viewing Date - 17th January 2012
UK Release Date - 13th January 2012
Cast Overview:
Emile Hirsch ~ Sean
Olivia Thirlby ~ Natalie
Max Minghella ~ Ben
Rachael Taylor ~ Anne
Joel Kinnaman ~ Skyler
Veronika Ozerova ~ Vika
Director ~ Chris Gorak
Writer(s) ~ Jon Spaihts (Screenplay and Story), Leslie Bohem (Story) and M T Ahern (Story)
No comments:
Post a Comment