The Darkest Hour Reviews
Shadows on the Wall
An intriguing idea and inventive visual approach is let down by a script that runs out out of steam before it ever reaches full speed.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/5
Little White Lies
Sensationally poor.
Full Review
| Original Score: 1/5
Daily Express
With Moscow-emptied out, a la London in 28 Days Later, it is visually impressive but plodding and silly.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/5
Birmingham Post
A visually ambitious but decidedly lightweight thriller about scarcely visible aliens attacking earth for its power supply.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/5
Sky Movies
An awkward re-hash of any number of superior movies ending in a risible liaison with a CGI submarine that would look unrealistic in an episode of Bagpuss.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/5
ViewLondon
Dismal, poorly directed and badly thought-out sci-fi thriller that quickly squanders its intriguing premise in favour of under-developed characters running and shouting for 90 minutes.
Full Review
| Original Score: 1/5
Total Film
If you can get past the hokey premise, then you could be in for a good time with this lumbering 3D disaster-porn noisemaker.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/5
Top CriticThere's literally nothing here that works: the SFX are limp, the acting is dire and director Chris Gorak seems to be fighting a losing battle with the concept of narrative logic.
Full Review
| Original Score: 1/5
Reel Film Reviews
A familiar yet watchable thriller...
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/4
Common Sense Media
The Darkest Hour is hardly original at this point, and though many of its fellow alien invasion movies are terrible, this one has the "advantage" of being merely dull.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/5
Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN)
The kills are super-cool, as invisible energy 'ghosts' from outer space flash-fry humans (and dogs) in dust-devil swirls of ash and spark; unfortunately, everything else is utterly perfunctory.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/4
Movies.com
This is possibly the most joy-sucking film of 2011.
Full Review
| Original Score: 0.5/5
jackiekcooper.com
In the rise and fall of Emile Hirsch's career, this is the fall
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/10
SSG Syndicate
Dim-witted apocalyptic disaster
Full Review
| Original Score: 2/10
Austin Chronicle
It opts for less of the same old thing, but with more cruddy CGI and even more predictable results.
Full Review
| Original Score: 1/5
The Playlist
A generic let-down that isn't bad enough even to be memorable.
Full Review
| Original Score: D+
Movies.com
Yes, there's a getaway submarine in this movie. What if it were driven by a cat? Why shouldn't it be driven by a cat? No reason, right? That's right. It could totally happen, just as easily as anything else.
Full Review
| Original Score: 0.5/5
JoBlo's Movie Emporium
This seems like a very haphazardly pieced-together flick.
Full Review
| Original Score: 5/10
It's clear from early on that these characters are as indistinct and lazily rendered as the floating blobs chasing them.
Full Review
| Original Score: D+
AV Club
Not since Mark Wahlberg trembled in fear beside a menacing houseplant in The Happening has a film tried to provoke terror with such an unlikely object of menace.
Full Review
| Original Score: F
