The Darkest Hour  (2011)
[+]
(Foreign Titles)
Nomination Year: 2014
SYNOPSIS: Two American software developers, the Nice One and the Jerk One, are in Moscow to sell their new product, a social network for travelers. Unfortunately, when they arrive at the sales meeting, their partner, the Smarmy Swede, is already there and, since they forgot to make him sign an NDA, has stolen their idea and sold it to the Russians himself. Oh well. At least their social network lets them see where all the best party spots are. They go to Moscow's hottest club and spot Moscow's hottest girl. Just as they are about to go up to hit on her, though, the Smarmy Swede shows up and hits on her first! Instead, they're forced to settle for two American tourists with British accents, the Blonde One and the Brunette One. Fortunately, the Jerk One's obnoxious pickup moves are interrupted by an alien invasion. The aliens open the invasion with an EMP that destroys all non-plot-specific electrical devices, then land and start killing people by turning them into dust to save on corpse costs. To save even more, the aliens themselves are invisible energy beings, detectable only because their presence causes nearby electrical devices to turn on, allowing for lots of creepy, but inexpensive, flickering light effects. The aliens kill everyone in the club except the software designers, the American/British tourists, and the Smarmy Swede, who hide out in the basement for several days until the food runs out and the piss bucket stench gets overwhelming. They emerge to find a powerless, depopulated Moscow possibly overrun by invisible aliens and immediately decide that they need to get to the U.S. embassy to arrange transport home. The only one who can find any possible flaw in that plan is the Smarmy Swede, who thinks they should go to the Swedish embassy instead. They find a Russian pensioner, who tells them to get lost and that everybody's dead, and have a few close calls with aliens before arriving at the U.S. embassy and finding that, surprise!, everybody's dead. Furthermore, the logs the embassy staff wrote before they died confirm that the attack is worldwide and everybody's dead everywhere. However, the trip isn't a total loss. Smarmy Swede finds an assault rifle that had been used by one of the embassy's Marine guards, which makes him sufficiently overconfident to run out into the street and get himself killed, much to everybody's relief. Plus, they find a radio, which is broadcasting a repeating message in Russian. Now they just have to find somebody who speaks Russian! Like maybe that pensioner? Of course not! But they do spot a light on inside high-rise apartment building a few blocks away and go to investigate. The apartment belongs to a Russian electrician who has encased his apartment in a Faraday cage, rendering it invisible to the aliens and protecting his electrical devices from the EMP, allowing him to still use them with power from, uh... Anyway, he's also built a microwave gun, which can stun the aliens and knock down their electromagnetic shields, allowing normal weapons to affect them. He's also able to translate the radio message, which fortunately isn't blocked by the Faraday cage because, uh... Anyway, there's a Russian nuclear sub in the Moscow River which will leave tomorrow morning with any survivors who can get to it. Even better, there's also an American sub in Nova Scotia and a British one in the English Channel and maybe they can all meet up later for coffee or something. Sergei also rescued a teenage Russian girl. Unfortunately, the Law of Conservation of Blondes means that the heroes can't keep both the Blonde One and the Teenager. Since the Blonde One is kind of a whiner, they wisely let her and Sergei get eaten by the aliens and flee with the Teenager to go find the sub. On the way, they meet up with a Mad Max gang who using an assault rifle, a flame thrower, and an anti-tank rifle to hold off the aliens, which is better than all the military forces in the world managed to do, since they apparently didn't have access to assault rifles, flame throwers, or anti-tank rifles. The Mad Maxers can't actually kill the aliens with these weapons, but they can annoy them into going away for a while. Or, at least, they couldn't until the heroes showed up with the microwave gun. The heroes agree to turn over the gun in exchange for an escort to the sub. This works pretty well except for the Nice One getting killed saving the Teenager, but then there's another alien attack right as they get to the sub. Everyone survives, but the Brunette One gets separated from the group, forcing the others to launch a rescue mission to get her back. Oddly, nobody dies in the rescue, not even any of the miscellaneous low-ranking Mad Maxers or sub crew. With their new-found microwave guns, the Mad Maxers stay behind to defend the city, the sub picks up radio messages about successful resistance groups forming around the world, and the Jerk One and the Brunette One get together.
Greg Pearson
Smithee Award Nominations
Most Ludicrous Premise
It's Kind of an Energy Theme...
Invisible wave energy beings, microwave-based EMP, plot-specific Faraday cages, and nuclear submarines.
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Directors
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