UFO movie news round-up (1 Jan. 2012)

By Robbie Graham Silver Screen Saucers

Harrison Ford is to play the role of Colonel Hyram Graff in Ender's Game, a big screen adaptation of Orson Scott Card’s classic – and, until now, “unfilmable” – sci-fi novel about a future Earth under threat of invasion by a race of insectoid aliens known as 'Formics'. Set seventy years after an epic human/alien war, the story follows the character of Ender Wiggin, a young boy whose tactical genius offers hope for humanity in the face of a new Formic invasion.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Ender's Game will also star Hailee Steinfeld (True Grit), Abigail Breslin and Ben Kingsly. Ben Hood (Rendition, X-Men: Origins) will helm the production, while Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci (whose credits include Transformers and Cowboys and Aliens) will produce. Shooting begins in February and the movie will hit cinemas in March 2013.

In other news, Game of Thrones director Alan Taylor has been chosen by Marvel to direct the sequel to Thor. Plot details for Thor 2 are sketchy at present, but the first movie – which features in my ten most notable UFO movies of 2011 list – touched on various themes and ideas central to UFOlogy, including Ancient Astronauts, wormhole travel and shadowy government agents tasked with monitoring extraordinary phenomena. Incidentally, the character of Thor will also be appearing in the upcoming mega-movie The Avengers, in which he and other Marvel superheroes will be pitted against the alien menace Loki – Thor’s own brother. Thor 2 is due for release in 2013. The Avengers is released this April. View the trailer below...

Finally, the Moscow-set alien invasion movie The Darkest Hour has opened to poor reviews from critics. Entertainment Weekly gave the movie a D+, noting: “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.” Ouch. The Wrap was no less scathing in its review, calling The Darkest Hour an “aggressively idiotic movie”, saying of its thinly sketched characters: “if these dimwits represent the hope of humanity, bring on the alien overlords.” In the same vein, The Hollywood Reporter describes The Darkest Hour as “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." Ouch again. For many more wince-inducing reviews of The Darkest Hour, head on over to Rotten Tomatoes.

The Darkest Hour (2011): An "aggressively idiotic movie."