History Film / TheDarkestHour

%%* AnyoneCanDie

%%* DwindlingParty: Oh yeah.

%%* TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt

* BadassBystander: The Bartender in the club has his moment when the Aliens first arrive. He puts together a Molotov Cocktail and throws it at an Alien. Nevertheless, the Alien charges up a powered blast which severs his arm and puts a hole in the wall. The heroes attempt to save him by dragging him to safety, but he dies from the shock. They wrap his corpse in plastic film.

** [[spoiler:Sean and Ben are searching a Police Car when they are caught in the open by an Alien. Desperate, they hide underneath the vehicle as it scans the car for signs of life. While it does this, the car lights up in all it's electrical glory, with the siren blaring and lights flashing. This lets the heroes know that the Aliens can be spotted by how they make electrical devices and light sources activate.]]
** [[spoiler:Sean is in a clothing store in a shopping mall when another Alien comes in to search the building. Sean lies still and hopes for the best, while the Alien just floats on past him. He then realises that he was behind a pane of glass, and therefore invisible to the Alien, as since they sense electricity, they cannot see through glass.]]
* DramaticIrony: The Aliens only see in some form of Electrolocation, meaning they more or less sense the Electricity in a living being by generating their own Electrical field. [[spoiler: This also means they cannot see through glass, one of the most transparent solids known to man, as Glass is not a conductor of Electricity. So if you find yourself cornered by an Alien, hide behind glass.]]
* DwindlingParty: Oh yeah.

* TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt

* FiveRoundsRapid: Used by the Russian Spec-Ops on their BigDamnHeroes EstablishingCharacterMoment. Turns out that if you shoot them enough, the aliens ''will'' run away (it takes flamethrowers and ''direct bazooka hits'', though).

* HeroicSacrifice: [[spoiler: Skyler, the Jerkass of the movie, finds himself cut off from the others by two Aliens. In order to buy the others time to escape, he begins blindly firing his Rifle at the Aliens before the both of them take turns vaporising his legs and torso. Ouch!]]

* IWillFightSomeMoreForever: Why the Russian Spec-Ops decide to stay behind in Moscow at the end: it's their home and they are going to keep fighting for it. And with the microwave guns, they have now a pretty good fighting chance.

* JerkassHasAPoint: While far from the nicest character, the {{Jerkass}} still has a point when he suggests going to the Swedish Embassy since it's closer.

* PoliceAreUseless: [[spoiler: The first Human we see get vaporised is an Officer of the Moscow PD, after he attempts to prod an Alien with his Nightstick. His partner pulls out his sidearm, and after he watches his first shot disintegrate on contact, that's the only warning he needs before he backs off away from it.]]
** Days after the Initial Invasion, our protagonists come across an abandoned Cop car in the middle of the Red Square. With it's doors and trunk unlocked, and all the Human Ash nearby, it's likely that these officers and any others didn't fare any better.
* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: After watching his first shot get disintegrated by the Alien that just killed his partner, a Moscow Police Officer quickly takes the hint and backs away from the Alien at quite a pace.
* TouchOfDeath: Anything that touches the aliens [[spoiler: shields]] is disintegrated on contact.
* TooDumbToLive: Anne, full stop. [[spoiler: After they are copped by an Alien, ActionSurvivor Vika tells them to run to a safe place she knows of where they can hide. Anne instead decides to run back to Sergei's Faraday Cage, prompting Natalie and the Alien to follow her. Once there, she pushes the gate open without unlocking it, which breaks the lock and consequently the gate. The Alien gets inside the cage, compromising their safe haven and getting both herself and Sergei killed. Too dumb to live indeed.]]

* DoesNotLikeShoes: During the first half of the film, Natalie removes her high heal shoes, and runs around in her bare feet for quite some time before gaining a pair of boots.

* AchillesHeel: The aliens are for all intents [[NighInvulnerability completely invincible]] [[spoiler:while they're shielded and invisible.]] Even a direct hit from a ''armor piercing rocket'' only knocks off a [[ChekhovsGun chunk of metal]] the size of a man's fist. [[spoiler:When the shields are down, however, it's another story - it only takes a few seconds of [[MoreDakka sustained automatic small-arms fire]] to kill one. The real revelation comes when Sean throws that chunk of metal at an unshielded alien - it [[HoistByHisOwnPetard disintegrates like its victims did]].]]

* BizarreAlienBiology: [[spoiler:The aliens are metallic lifeforms, and thus consume conductive metals to survive. They also see via a form of Electrolocation, done by generating their own Electrical field, which can light up electrical light sources.]]

Ben (Max Minghella) and Sean (Emile Hirsch), two American entrepreneurs, join up with their corrupt Swedish business partner Skyler (Joel Kinnaman) and two female tourists, Natalie (Olivia Thirlby) and Anne (Creator/RachaelTaylor) as they try to make their way out of Moscow.

Not to be confused with the 2017 film ''Darkest Hour'', which is about Winston Churchill.

* RussiansWithRustingRockets: Aside from the ActionSurvivor heroes, the only other group of people who are giving the aliens a fight are a group of Russian Spec-Ops that they meet later. Once the group manages to produce enough microwave guns, the Russians decide to stay behind and bring ''the war'' to the aliens.

* TooDumbToLive: Anne, full stop. [[spoiler: After they are copped by an Alien, ActionSurvivor Vika tells them to run to a safe place she knows of where they can hide. Anne instead decides to run back to Sergei's Faraday Cage, prompting Natalie and the Alien to follow her. Once there, she pushes the gate open without unlocking it, which breaks the lock and consequently the gate. the Alien gets inside the cage, compromising their safe haven and getting both herself and Sergei killed. Too dumb to live indeed.]]

* DramaticIrony: [[spoiler: The Aliens only see in some form of Electrolocation, meaning they more or less sense the Electricity in a living being by generating their own Electrical field. [[This also means they cannot see through glass, one of the most transparent solids known to man, as Glass is not a conductor of Electricity. So if you find yourself cornered by an Alien, hide behind glass.]]

* BizarreAlienBiology: [[spoiler:The aliens are metallic lifeforms, and thus consume conductive metals to survive.]]
* BizarreAlienSenses: The aliens sense electricity. [[spoiler: This means they can't see through glass.]]

* MotherRussiaMakesYouStrong: Almost every Russian character is a {{Badass}} in more or less extent in this movie.

* SpecialEffectFailure: A ''literal'' example, oddly enough. The effect for the invisible aliens (so that the audience can see them) only works in 3D; on a 2D screen, they are simply not there, and the effect is entirely lost.

* WarWasBeginning: "Today was the last day of extermination... and it's the first day of the war."

* IWilFightSomeMoreForever: Why the Russian Spec-Ops decide to stay behind in Moscow at the end: it's their home and they are going to keep fighting for it. And with the microwave guns, they have now a pretty good fighting chance.

* ThisHasOnlyJustBegun: "Today was the last day of extermination... and it's the first day of the war."