First post of 2012, and it's a post about movie review. Quite a departure from the norm but oh well.
So today was the submission date of my last assignment, Core Business Skills. Me and my friends decided to hang out and watch movie as a form of reward for the endless sleepless nights we had just to complete our assignments. My friends wanted to watch "The Darkest Hour", which frankly didn't quite get my interest, based on the movie poster itself.
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| Yes, I'm just dying to watch this. Looks like a nice movie, no? *Yawn* |
I really wanted to watch Sherlock Holmes. However, since it's 2 against 1, I gave in.
*SPOILERS, PROCEED WITH CAUTION*
The movie opened with two of the main male characters, Sean and Ben, were going to Moscow for a business deal of their website. It was some kind of GPS system and they were able to see who checked in. Upon arrival on the company's building, they found out that they were back-stabbed by a Sweedish guy named Skyler (nice name, preferred it to be a girl's name though), who stole their idea and treated it as his own. Angered yet unable to do anything, Sean and Ben drowned their sorrows in a night club. The two dudes decided to chat with two girls, an American girl (Natalie) with her Australian friend (Anne). Suddenly, there was a blackout and everyone went out to see what happened. Now this was when the movie became absolutely random.
Everyone gathered outside and saw strange orange lights that were floating and filling up the Moscow's sky. One of the lights went down to the ground and disappeared. A policeman tried to poke it with his baton. Upon contact, he was immediately shred into dust. And that's when pandemonium broke loose. As more and more of these weird invisible thing settled on the ground, they immediately shred people up. In the end, our four characters and Skyler locked themselves in the basement of the night club for days. They wanted to go to the U.S. Embassy for help. There, not a visible human that was alive. However, they found out some clues of survivors. As the movie progressed, they met up with another survivor, a Russian girl named Vika and a scientist, Mr. Sergei. They found out the clue was that a nuclear submarine will depart with all survivors at the river (which I forgot, I didn't really pay much attention to details of movies I'm not interested at). So, the group's mission was to get on the submarine...
Honestly, after watching the movie, I'm left with an unsatisfied aftertaste. I felt that the movie was absolutely random and pointless. Below is a list of reasons why I think the movie sucks in my point of view.
1) In the beginning, there was no buildup of suspense and out of nowhere, strange aliens started attacking and shredding people into dust. It was totally out of the blue.
2) It was highly predictable on which character was about to die. Only one of the characters death totally caught me unaware. So I guess that's a plus.
3) Some inconsistencies and absolutely lack of logic. At one point, Sean and Ben wanted to warn Skyler to take cover since it was dangerous. One second they were on the top of the building. Immediately after they left, Natalie took the telescope and saw the invisible aliens approaching Skyler and the two guys were already on the ground near Skyler. It's almost as if it took few seconds for the guys to reach down. -.- Bear in mind, the building was pretty high. Even if it's a movie about aliens attacking the world, there should be some ounce of logic left.
4) Sean and Ben concluded that the being was unable to detect them if they hid under the car. So, why didn't they just hid under the car in some of the latter encounters? I believed hiding under the car would be a much better option than just running blindly on the street.
5) The characters lacked character development. What did the characters learned from this invasion? How did it feel to see their dear friends being shred into dust right in front of them? I felt that the characters did not display any significant change in their attitudes throughout the movie. It was all about "we have to get into the frigging submarine" all the way. They did had their moments and mourned for the death of their friends, however, it was brief and fleeting. It did not have any lasting effect on the characters. Maybe I'm too demanding. But that's just an example. Anyways, the lack of character development could be either due to poor writing or due to the actors' inexperience. Frankly speaking, I do not know
any of the actors and actresses in the movie. Based from the reviews I had read in the Internet, the actors and actresses are kinda new. The only actor that showed any promising aspect was the actor that acted as Sean, Emile Hirsch. However, it was still not enough.
6) The aliens were kind of a joke. It was pretty cool that these aliens were invisible in the beginning. It's much scarier if you are unable to see what's attacking you. Yet, near the end of the movie where the characters attacked the aliens and we were able to see their true faces, I was like... -.- The aliens turned out to be some weird cartoonish-looking-black-spider-like-creature-with-faces-that-I-would-deemed-almost-comical.
By the end of the movie, it seemed to be playing with the idea of a sequel as a follow-up.
All in all, I would rate this movie 4 out of 10. Though I dislike this movie, I wouldn't go as far as to say this movie sucked like shit because I've seen worse. If you have a stronger suspension of disbelief, you may find this movie to be slightly okay. I mean, my friends kinda like the movie since it was pretty suspenseful and nerve-wrecking. I agreed, which was some of the redeeming qualities of this movie.
P.S. This is my first movie review, so obviously, if you are seeking movie reviews and happened to stumble on my post, sorry if I was unable to really write a proper review. =P
