Darkest Hour: Review

• This is a NON-Spoiler review for Darkest Hour.

• Plot Summary: "A thrilling and inspiring true story begins at the precipice of World War II as, within days of becoming Prime Minister of Great Britain, Winston Churchill (Academy Award nominee Gary Oldman) must face one of his most turbulent and defining trials: exploring a negotiated peace treaty with Nazi Germany, or standing firm to fight for the ideals, liberty and freedom of a nation. As the unstoppable Nazi forces roll across Western Europe and the threat of invasion is imminent, and with an unprepared public, a skeptical King, and his own party plotting against him, Churchill must withstand his darkest hour, rally a nation, and attempt to change the course of world history."

• I am a big fan of both Gary Oldman and Lily James who both star in this movie. This is from the director of Pan which I hated. And I'm not nearly as familiar with Sir Winston Churchill's story as I'd like to be. I am a big fan of any history story especially World War II. Steven Spielberg's Lincoln is one of my favorite movies. I loved Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk from this year. I think that a lot of directors think they can just simply show you everything that happens in the history books instead of putting effort into making it interesting on film. This one was hit and miss for me.

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• Let's just talk about the best part of the movie. Gary Oldman has transformed into this role. The makeup artists have to get an Oscar nomination. A lot of people have been saying they don't recognize Gary Oldman under all the makeup. I definitely think it's fantastic make-up, but I do recognize Gary Oldman's face very easily. But at the same time, I did forget that I was watching Gary Oldman and not an old man. I think that Gary Oldman put a lot of work into this role. But to me, I think that no matter how talented an actor is or who well they perform, if the script doesn't showcase their talents, it's not a great performance to me. Again, I think Gary Oldman did a fantastic job at getting Winston Churchill's mannerisms. So Gary Oldman has proved that he has the power to become Winston Churchill. But what the script allows him to do with that power is what makes a great performance. So in my opinion, Gary Oldman became Sir Winston Churchill but the story didn't give him the meat that he should have been given. I think that it would be unfair if Gary Oldman didn't get recognized for this role but at the same time, I wasn't very impressed past what you see in the trailer. I also wanted to talk about Lily James. I am quickly becoming a bigger and bigger fan of hers. She's great in Cinderella and Baby Driver. I think it's time for her to be given a lot more prominent roles. And in Darkest Hour she has even less to do than she did in Baby Driver.

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• Again, I wish that I knew more about Churchhill's story. Not until this movie came out did I know that Sir Winston Churchill was an underdog story. A lot of people doubted his ability to be able to lead the UK through World War II. And I think Sir Winston Churchill was a great man and a great leader and a very likable man. There are quite a few scenes where Gary Oldman gets to portray Churchill as a very lovable guy and he made me smile particularly in a scene on a train (you'll know if you see it). I think that Churchill was a very loveable guy who has an incredible story of how he got people to fight. I don't think this movie did him justice.

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• I think you can label this entire movie as hit and miss. To me, this movie had signs of a good filmmaker, and then even more signs of a bad filmmaker. I really like some of the set designs and how they could visually emphasize the story. But I also thought the cinematography was very boring. I thought there were scenes where the writing was good and then there are scenes where the writing was boring. It felt like conversations between characters were delayed for no reason other than to fill runtime. There was some very strange and noticeable editing. And I think this movies biggest problem is tone. Not very often do I feel any tasks or the weight of the journey. It's very light-hearted throughout a lot of the movie. I liked the light-hearted side of this story and I think it was needed, but I think that the movie needed to make me feel the weight of the world crashing down of this character. And not very often did I feel it. It's more just scenes of him talking while Lily James writes it down on her typewriter. It's just kinda this weightless comedic underdog story. Maybe if you made a supercut of this and Dunkirk if it would have helped.

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• This movie also didn't really draw me into the story either. I found that a lot of the time my mind was drifting off to the other things. It's not easy to make me pay attention to a ton of dialogue. It has to be really good if a movie is gonna entirely rely on dialogue. Movies like The Philidelphia Story or Steve Jobs work for me because the dialogue is so appealing. If it's not fantastic dialogue, I'm not gonna hear every word. I much prefer a filmmaker to visually tell a story than to tell it through dialogue. Show don't tell. Darkest Hour mostly relies on dialogue and it wasn't good enough to keep my attention. And the big triumphant moments of the story didn't feel earned because I was getting bored. Which is not doing Sir Winston Churchill's story justice in my opinion. But at the same time, people in my theater applauded. So maybe you'll like this movie. If you're a history fan, or if you want to watch a performance that will probably be nominated, then check out Darkest Hour. Otherwise, I think you could wait to rent this at home or watch it on Netflix. My grade for Darkest Hour is a B-