Before For All Mankind, Joel Kinnaman Starred In One Of The Worst Sci-Fi Movies Of The 2010s

We might know him as Rick Flag Jr., the guy from the dodgy "Robocop" remake, and the star of Apple TV's excellent "For All Mankind," but Joel Kinnaman has been acting since he was a child. He made his debut at the age of 11 in Swedish soap opera "Storstad," playing Felix Lundström in 22 episodes beginning in 1990. After that, he took a break from acting, before returning to both stage and screen in his early 20s. In 2011, Kinnaman landed the role that would introduce him to audiences outside his native Sweden: homicide detective Stephen Holder on AMC's "The Killing."

Unfortunately, Kinnaman's crime thriller series (currently available on Hulu) wasn't actually his first major production outside Sweden. Instead, the actor's first international feature was the 2011 sci-fi actioner "The Darkest Hour." No, this is not the critically-acclaimed Gary Oldman Winston Churchill biopic. This is the movie about an alien invasion that Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian called "very cheap and silly-looking."

In 2010, Kinnaman had already starred in Swedish film "Easy Money" which earned Martin Scorsese's seal of approval, and was planning his international debut. The actor told Östran Lokaltidningen, "I absolutely don't feel like I have to take anything just because it's the USA. I look for things that I find interesting." Evidently, one of those things was "The Darkest Hour," in which Kinnaman plays a Swedish businessman who alongside his former business partners and two tourists, finds himself in the midst of a devastating alien attack where he's forced to fight back. The reviews were just as devastating.

"The Darkest Hour" is directed by Chris Gorak, who had an impressive career as an art director and production designer prior to his 2011 film. Gorak (who made his directorial debut with 2006's "Right at Your Door") worked as an art director on everything from "Fight Club" to "Minority Report" and served as production designer on "Blade: Trinity" and one of Heath Ledger's best films, "Lords of Dogtown." That films is presumably where he first met "The Darkest Hour" star Emile Hirsch. Sadly, their second collaboration wasn't anywhere near as good as when they gave us a convincingly realistic peek into 1970s skateboard culture.

"The Darkest Hour" sees American entrepreneurs Sean (Hirsch) and Ben (Max Minghella) arrive in Moscow ready to sell their latest app. Once there, they're dismayed to find their business partner, Skyler (Joel Kinnaman) has already sold a version of the app without them. Soon after, Sean and Ben go to a nightclub where they meet tourists Natalie (Olivia Thirlby) and Anne (Rachael Taylor). But before the quartet can get better acquainted their night out is rudely interrupted by the arrival of invisible extra-terrestrials with the ability to turn humans to ash in a matter of seconds.

The aliens' arrival is accompanied by a worldwide power outage, transforming every major city into a deserted wasteland. In the wake of the attack, Sean, Ben, Natalie, and Anne meet up with Skyler and venture into the wasteland. We then watch as these former entrepreneurs and tourists suddenly become commandos capable of taking on the advanced alien invaders.

The film was produced by Timur Bekmambetov, the perpetrator of the crime that was Ice Cube's 2025 "War of the Worlds" remake. "The Darkest Hour" was almost as bad.

Amazingly, "The Darkest Hour" was not a box office flop. The film made $64.6 million on a $30 million budget, which means it should have at least broken even. Unfortunately, the critics were about as ruthless as the film's invisible alien invaders.

At the time of writing, "The Darkest Hour" holds a 12% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes based on 60 reviews. What's more, not a single "top critic" liked the movie. The nicest thing any of them had to say came from Perri Nemiroff at something called "Shockya.com," who wrote that "The Darkest Hour" was "not a good alien invasion movie, but an alien invasion movie." The worst? Well, there are several contenders, but Alonso Duralde of TheWrap was fairly direct when he wrote, "If these dimwits represent the hope of humanity, bring on the alien overlords."

Really the best thing about "The Darkest Hour" is the humans turning to ash effect, which looks like a cross between Thanos' snap and Buffy the Vampire Slayer's vamp-dusting. Otherwise, the whole thing really is poor stuff, which is a shame given it was Joel Kinnaman's international debut. Thankfully, "The Killing" overshadowed "The Darkest Hour," ensuring worldwide audiences were introduced to Kinnaman via a quality crime thriller rather than a sub-par alien invasion movie that the Boston Globe's Joel Brown felt had even less character than a Discover commercial. Kinnaman recently reunited with his "The Killing" co-star Mireille Enos on "For All Mankind" which is available to stream on Apple TV and is a much more worthwhile sci-fi outing than "The Darkest Hour."