The Darkest Hour (2011)

The Darkest Hour turns out to be a modestly inventive and involving variation on a standard-issue sci-fi doomsday scenario.

Capable and compelling performers like Hirsch and Thirlby seem left to their own devices to make some connection with the material. The idea of semi-invisible aliens, an unseen enemy, should mean the film has a lingering sense of paranoid abstraction (not unlike "Right at Your Door"), but Darkest Hour never gets beyond rote efficiency.

You should be rooting for the humans, but you might as well be rooting for the blobs. Most likely, though, you'll just be rooting for the credits.

An alien invasion flick that evidently expects dramatic shots of a depopulated Red Square to make up for a flatlining screenplay and the absence of even a single compelling character.

Once upon a time, you'd go to see a grade-C genre movie like this willing to trade consistency and artfulness for a few stray thrills or oddball charm. But Darkest Hour doesn't have even as much character as those Discover commercials.