“The Darkest Hour” is an alien thriller about the world being attacked by invisible aliens who are out to steal Earth’s energy. They make their way around by sensing electricity, which is a give away based on the light orbs and animals the aliens gravitate towards.

The only things that can keep the aliens away are strong weapons, glass and special gates. The safest time to roam what’s left of the world is at night and most of the world’s population has been killed, of course, because this is a disaster film.

The main characters are Americans visiting Russia. The two boys (one being Max Minghella who played Divya Narenda in “The Social Network,” and no, I’m not kidding) are college grads who are trying to market a social network used to find bars, clubs and other hot spots.

The two main girl characters, a photographer and her assistant, meet the boys at one of the Russian clubs, which is when the invisible aliens attack. When people try to fight back or run away, the aliens attack by pulling them into their electrical force and turning them into ash.

Despite disaster movies not being my thing, I chose to see “The Darkest Hour” because it interested me. I was amused throughout the movie. What made this movie easier to watch was that it was one the shortest disaster films I’ve ever seen, barely 90 minutes. My prior stance on disaster films was that I didn’t like them. But I think I have to amend that and say I just don’t like mega disaster films that last at least two hours like “2012” and “The Day after Tomorrow.”

Also unlike those films, in “The Darkest Hour,” the viewers didn’t see too many of the deaths. Those who did die were underdeveloped characters, including the deaths of two main characters. So I didn’t feel anything when they died.

Speaking of underdevelopment, the reason the film was so short was because the writers didn’t waste time. They started off the film with the main characters still experiencing normalcy so you could get an idea of them. But after the aliens struck, the entire film focused on the aliens and how the characters were going to survive.

The writers only explained things about the characters one more time after the beginning of the film. There were no montages and no attempts to distract the characters from the impending doom. They didn’t even try to fit in a sex scene. Not that I’m complaining but other films seem to always try to fit in romantic moments.

While it is nice that this movie got to the point and wasn’t a gruelingly long disaster film, its biggest flaws were character development and script.

The problem with the writing is that it is a tad cheesy. At certain points of the movie, I thought the screenwriter must have had a certain tone in mind when writing the script, except the actors were not informed. So acting was also a bit of a problem. All of its flaws made it unintentionally hilarious.

Aside from its flaws, it was good enough to make me not want to leave the theater early.

I give the movie a C+.