The Darkest Hour Directed by: Chris Gorak Starring: Emile Hirsch, Olivia Thirlby, Max Minghella Rating: PG-13 Release Date: December 23, 2011

TRAILER SCORE: 7/10

Thoughts by TSR: It seems that Hollywood felt we were due for yet another alien invasion movie. While I was somewhat taken with the idea that this movie has an actual plot, I'm still not entirely sold on this one.

I know this may sound weird, but I think what I'm most excited about is the location. I feel like the movie could do a lot of really interesting things with Moscow as the setting, which hopefully was intentional and not just a random city choice. I feel like they could do some really interesting things with that, especially being a largely Americanized production.

Then again, it seems like the film's location and visual effects are the main attraction for this one. Sure, like I said, there's an actual plot to this one and while I could pretend that I'm actually intrigued by that, the editor of this trailer did his best to cram as much action and visual effects as he could. It's not a bad selling tactic and it was more than enough to pique my interest, but we'll see. As it stands now, I'm impressed that they were able to combine an actual story with some mind-blowing special effects. It's not easy to pull off both, but The Darkest Hour finds a way to dance between the two, making for an interesting two and a half minutes, but we'll see if it's enough to make for an interesting movie.