Maybe I was mislead from all the promotional hype of Darkest Hour? I thought this movie was gonna be about the life and times of Winston Churchill (Gary Oldman) during his time as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in World War II. If you thought so too, let me be the first to tell you that this movie’s main focus is literally about two weeks. The war may have been years long, but Darkest Hour is just about his rise to Prime Minister and saving the boys at Dunkirk…which we have already seen once this year. This film seems to have already wrapped up the Best Picture and Best Actors awards, but let’s be real for a second. Although we get an amazing performance out of a completely transformed Oldman, he mumbles about 80% of his lines so I found myself more lost and confused then the boys stuck at Dunkirk. I also don’t understand how one small moment in such a small time frame would be so much impact. Besides his famous speech, no one liked this guy and planned to throw him out as soon as they elected him. I honestly never felt there was enough drama here to keep interested in what was to come or to see how bad things could get. People are gonna love this film and the performances in it, but maybe my mind got the best of me here and I expected the sun and moon. Either way, Darkest Hour shouldn’t be skipped, because some people are really gonna appreciate this significant story. 5/10
Ten Stars or Less 
I haven’t seen it yet, but I knew it was only gonna be about a couple of weeks in Churchill’s life, not his entire life.
Interesting that there was another Churchill movie this year with Brian Cox as the prime minister, which also focused on a particular point in his life as well.
Thanks for the warning about this one; I’m seeing it next week and maybe it will help if I go in with lower expectations. BTW, thanks for occasionally dropping into cinemusefilms. Always lovely to read your thoughts. Have a fabulous movie-filled New Year.
Do you purposely go out of your way to disagree with the majority of critics or do you just think it’s cool? Because honestly I don’t think we viewed the same film. From the lighting in parliament to the cold and sinister phone call between Churchill and Rosevelt, the movie has magic. If you are at all passionate about history, you will enjoy this film (although it is not 100% accurate portrayal of historical events). Also, Churchill had a speech impediment, hence the mumbling, rewatch it with subtitles.
Amazingly I do not go out of my way to purposely hate “great” movies. Some stories work for me and some don’t, it’s really that simple. I thought the movie was gonna be over a period of time, not one or two days. Whether or not Gary Oldman did a great job and would win Best Actor is not for me to decide. I didn’t like the character or the performance so I gave the movie a low score. You probably didn’t cheer for the Athletes from Russia in the Gold Medal game because you don’t like who they are or the way they play. You probably still watched the game, but didn’t admire their skill or personalities.