Kutsenko as Matvei Veronika Vernadskaya as Vika Nikolay Efremov as Sasha Pyotr Fyodorov as Anton Batkin Georgiy Gromov as Boris Artur Smolyaninov as Yuri Anna Rudakova as Tess Production The Darkest Hour was directed by Chris Gorak and produced by Timur Bekmambetov. While most films about alien invasions are centered in the United States or have an international scale, Bekmambetov's involvement ensured the premise to be an alien invasion from Russia's perspective. With a production budget of $34.8 million, filming with 3D cameras began in Moscow on July 18, 2010. Production used resources from the Russian-based company Bazelevs, owned by Bekmambetov. Filming was temporarily suspended three weeks later due to the 2010 Russian wildfires affecting the city and its vicinity with their smog. By September 2010, filming had resumed. In April 2011 the release date was changed to December 25 due to filming conflicts in Russia. Release The Darkest Hour was released on December 25, 2011, in the United States in 2D, 3D and RealD 3D. The DVD release date was April 10, 2012, by Summit Entertainment. In the United Kingdom, it was released theatrically on January 13, 2012 and on DVD on May 21, 2012. Reception Rotten Tomatoes gives a score of 12% based on reviews from 59 critics and an average score of 3.16/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Devoid of believable characters or convincing visual effects, this may be The Darkest Hour for the careers of all involved." The Hollywood Reporter criticized the film for having a "flatlining screenplay and the absence of even a single compelling character", and The New York Times wrote that it has "a depressing failure of imagination". Writing for Slant Magazine, Budd Wilkins called it "a dimwitted 3D sci-fi travesty" and wrote, "Indifferently structured, Jon Spaihts's lame-brained script knows no narrative contrivance it doesn't love and, what's worse, blows its expositional load in the first 10 minutes, bringing together a quintet of cardboard cutout leads." Joe Leydon of Variety called it a "modestly inventive and involving variation on a standard-issue sci-fi doomsday scenario". References External links 2011 films 2010s monster movies 2011 3D films 2011 action thriller films American action thriller films American monster movies American science fiction action films American science fiction thriller films 2010s Russian-language films English-language Russian films Apocalyptic films Films set in Moscow Films set in the Caspian Sea Films set on airplanes Films shot in Moscow Films