..for heckling.

This was our choice for a night home with friends, and very quickly became a shared opinion: this is a great movie to watch drunk and heckle. Maybe a drinking game? Like MST3K. I have no doubt in 20-30 years The Darkest Hour will feature on the show.

I want an hour of my life back. Nothing in this movie works. Nothing is believable. Characters, dialogue, relationships, plot, actions and choices, effects, science, aliens. I have a great capacity for suspension of disbelief. I'll buy almost anything, and stretch way beyond where most people will just give up and move on. I can overlook massive holes in one area, as long as the story and characters are engaging and make me care.

There is a lot of use of technology and gadgets and concepts, but even as a layperson the holes are big enough to drive a truck through. Such as the Faraday cage, well, I mean, it has the word "cage" in it, but that's as far as that goes. Or the aliens with the apparent intelligence and attention span of a dog or toddler; out of sight, out of mind. Well, there was something there, but now I can't see it because it's hiding behind a piece of glass, so it must not exist anymore.

This is too bad, because Darkest Hour showed promise. The previews were really good. The idea and plot sounded cool. But things really fell apart right from the first scene, and kept going downhill.

0/5 terrible

Wow, this movie is taking a beating. I rather enjoyed it, but I seem to be in the vast minority here.

There will be some spoilers here, but really, the upshot of my review is that it's a 90% bog standard alien invasion B-movie.

First, the premise. Aliens invade earth, proceed to beam up people into their ships to suck out their brains and "life force". I should note, that this is absolutely no different or more cheesy than other alien B-movies, so picking Skyline apart based on that is unfair. It's not pretending to be a high brow intellectual production.

Here is also revealed the best part of the movie, which sets it apart from virtually every other alien movie, is that we know NOTHING about these aliens. No scientist figures out their language, or hacks into their mothership, or divines their intentions, or finds a trivial way to defeat them through some silly built-in weakness. There is NOTHING. They're just super-technologically advanced beings against whom humanity stands no chance. None. They come in and annihilate everything at will, not a question of how much, but how quickly.

Second, the effects. Most of the movie is special effects. As far as sets and practical effects, the budget was simply too small. Just some dude's apartment and a blue screen. But, the aliens look very cool. As always with special effects, the question is how well they will age. Sure, they look great today, but chances are they will be cheesy by the next decade, if not sooner.

The entertainment value in Skyline comes from the look and atmosphere, and the vision of the aliens themselves. We don't know who they are. They're not interested in negotiations. We don't know how they view us; do we matter, or are we just ants? What are their values? Many alien movies like to anthropomorphise their aliens. Which is boring, because they all end up being the same. They should be alien, in every sense of the word. And Skyline brings that vision a step closer.

That said, I agree with some of the more coherent reviewers here that Skyline is a couple minutes too long. It should have ended when the two protagonists get sucked into the alien ship. There, the end. Either way, it's not a happy ending, which I admire, because it takes balls. You know when you do this you're excluding most of the movie watching public. Even The Darkest Hour, which showed promise on the plot, on paper, but is far and away vastly inferior to Skyline in every way imaginable, tries to pull off a happy ending; there is a way to fight the aliens.

On the balance though, I've fund Skyline a worthy addition to my BR collection; not an Oscar contender by any means, but enjoyable for what it is. Keep expectations in line.

Another great album from Orb! Just wanted to mention that the UK import version has an extra track inserted at #12 (EDM) which (IMO) is easily worth the extra cost.

I guess whenever there's a movie on the war in Bosnia, there will be accusations of propaganda, skewing facts, rewriting history, biases, and so forth. As an aside, I do have to say that Savior comes out on the Serbian side, with Muslims being the definite bad guys here. (If you're looking for a relatively middle of the road view, see No Man's Land.) But that is none of my concern here.

I understand the movie was made on a budget (as seems clear from the director's commentary), but that is no excuse for its many shortcomings.

First, the good stuff.

It looks great. Great location, nice colours, and it sounds good to boot. Good production.

The action/fight scenes are very well done, not overdone in the ever so popular action movie style, but they don't look cheap and cheesy, just natural and realistic. Violence is well measured, purposeful (within the movie and plot) and has realistic results and consequences.

Camera work is good too, the close ups from Quaid's PoV work especially well. It's almost like being there :)

Finally, before I forget, the meat of the plot and Quaid's character are quite good.

But could have been worked better.

The opening scenes (developed as almost a separate sub-movie) introduce us to Quaid's character. Then he's off to Foreign Legion boot camp, and does a couple of missions, which presumably make him a hardened veteran. Really, they're just confusing. Too short to matter and to absorb. Suddenly we're in Bosnia looking through a sniper's scope. Aside from the opening scenes, we're left to assume Quaid's a tortured, restless, numb soul. He must be, because the director says so. Listening to the director's commentary track, you have to laugh out loud at times, because what he's describing and what you're seeing are almost total opposites. And I don't think it's a language barrier.

The director also keeps blaming the 'financiers' for many things. They wanted this, and that, didn't like this, etc, etc. Please...

The dialogue is very stiff, very forced and unnatural. Good thing the kid gets off-screen early; he's your typical Hollywood portrayal of a child, asking all these insightful adult questions, like 'is god in bad people too?' Adults don't fare much better, delivering disjoint, wooden lines every couple of minutes. And what's with those voices? Sure is a lot of grunting going around. Goran is just about the only guy with any soul showing in the movie.

That's my biggest beef here. It's almost painful to sit through the thing sometimes, you just gotta cringe and bear it for a few more minutes.

Which brings me to the last point. I don't see this as a difficult movie, or tough, or rough, or challanging, or any of that. Some reviewer said that the slight glimmer of hope with the baby was the only thing that made it worthwhile. Personally, I thought the movie took the easy way out several times, the major one being the baby plot. Just a little too wishy-washy Hollywoody happy ending style. There are a couple of scenes that will make your average American movie goer wince and oooh, and aww (out of social responsibility mostly), but nothing a seasoned war movie veteran hasn't seen before in more brutal detail.

Really, if the director intended for us to see Quaid's stuggle with himself, his humanity, his search for hope, it should have been more subtle, using plot points like the baby as mere devices, means to an end, not bludgeon viewers over the head to make sure they don't miss the obvious. And the director clearly indicates, time and time again, that this is a character study. Well, if it is, how come there's so little character?

2/5. It's not a bad movie, it just has a few bad points that really spoil a good idea, and a great opportunity for a classic and powerful film.

The movie was excellent, the acting superb, etc, etc. As a side note (which will become obsolete in a couple of weeks) why is it May 25 and I already have this DVD but the release date is June 12? Oh well. One issue I found with this DVD is that it 'has been formatted to fit _your_ screen'. I don't know about you, but I like widescreen. The only place this is indicated is in fine print near the bottom of the back of the case. Buyer beware.