SKYLINE Movie Review
After nearly a week of trying to get the time to rent and watch Skyline (directed by the Strause Brothers) and several attempts before that to see it in theaters, the anticipation had built up considerably. I wasn't so much excited to see this movie as relieved that I was finally able to watch it. Maybe that made me unnecessarily angry when I finally saw what I'd been waiting for. But I'd say, based on the Frankenstein, mix and match quality of it, I was well justified at being pissed off. Oh look everyone! It's every single alien invasion movie ever made jumbled together into 90 minutes of mediocre acting and bland special effects!
I don't even feel the need to go into a plot synopsis for this one, because you've likely heard it all before. It essentially follows a group of friends who are stuck in a high rise apartment building when a massive alien invasion hits Los Angeles. It starts as a brilliant light that sucks the population from the ground into massive ships, and then is invaded by aliens of different sizes and types. The friends make a couple of attempts to make a run for it and are thwarted every time. It boils down to the two main characters (Eric Balfour and Scottie Thompson), and has a surprise twist ending reminiscent of Shyamalan. The end was so ridiculous I had to restrain myself from throwing my remote at the television. Twist endings for the sake of twist endings - just like Shyamalan.
Besides the incredibly overused plot, the aliens in this film seem like a rip off of War of the Worlds, Transformers and Cloverfield. Really, there's nothing new or interesting about them, and most frustrating of all, nothing about them is ever explained. The cast is a group of barely known television actors who half ass their way through juvenile, melodramatic lines that made me roll my eyes so many times I thought I was having a seizure. The most annoying thing though, was the overuse of slow motion and sound design. And coming from someone who makes sound effects for a living, that's a pretty strong claim. It's like they saw one Michael Bay movie and decided to over saturate his over the top style in every scene. The one redeeming quality to this entire film was in its gruesome brutality. There was almost no blood, but it was violent as hell. It's the only thing that made this movie watchable.
I thank my lucky stars I didn't see this movie in theaters. Aside from the fact that I would have probably thrown my drink at the screen, fifteen bucks for this bland excuse of an action sci-fi would have been highway robbery.
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