Colin Strause's and Greg Strause's Skyline

[Hal2001]

Here's the link to the published version of my review in my column at The Richmond Examiner:

http://www.examiner.com/movie-in-ric...review-skyline



http://www.examiner.com/movie-in-ric...review-skyline

Skyline (2010)

In the pantheon of classic alien invasion films, which includes such entries as "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" and "Independence Day," you will never see the likes of "Skyline." It is destined to be forgotten just as quickly as "The Invasion." You don't remember that one? Well, I think that makes the point pretty clear. Both are so bland and forgettable that they don't have much of a chance of sticking in the memory for very long.

The story of "Skyline" has absolutely nothing new to offer and is one that we've seen several times before. This time the main characters, Jarrod (Eric Balfour) and Elaine (Scottie Thompson), come to LA to visit Terry (Donald Faison). That night, strange lights come down from the sky, which dazzles whoever looks at them with their supposed beauty. The next day, the lights are followed by an alien invasion force which includes large ships, creatures, and smaller scouting vessels.

Jarrod and the others watch as the aliens abduct thousands of people. Together they try to formulate a plan of action. They decide that the best thing to do is to try and get to a boat because they have noticed that the aliens are not over the water. After this fails, they find that they are very low on options and decide to wait in Terry's apartment in hope of rescue. Their main task is to remain hidden lest they be noticed by the invaders and taken away.

It's hard to remember seeing flatter characters than these. It's not common to expect much character development in a film like this, but even a little would do. The characters themselves are so bland that even their names were hard to recall (names in the synopsis courtesy of IMDB). They are the kind of characters that don't do anything to distinguish themselves from each other, making them completely interchangeable.

It certainly doesn't help that the screenplay sounds like it was written by someone with absolutely no experience in the field, and it just so happens that that's true. The authors, Joshua Cordes and Liam O'Donnell, have no writing experience and are in fact mainly special effects creators, which goes a long way towards explaining why "Skyline" is so special effects heavy while being very, very light on story.

The story consists of a short party, followed by a few minutes of standing around wondering what to do, running around while trying to escape the aliens, much more standing around (with some arguing thrown in), and finally, more running around with the aliens. It's just as dull as this description sounds.

The clichéd dialogue given to these characters only makes it worse. When they're not busy screaming and running away from the aliens, they're busy arguing about the course of action, shouting at each other with each of them thinking they know what they should do, with the plans contradicting of course, else they wouldn't have much to say to each other at all.

There are two semi-nice things to say about the film. First, some of the special effects are well done. They are not particularly great, but they get the job done. Other effects in the film look like they were rendered in about five minutes. I suppose they could only do so much on a $10 million budget. The other thing is that the film is pretty short. It only runs about 85 minutes, so as bad as it gets, at least it doesn't run overly long.

"Skyline" doesn't really even have an ending. It sort of leaves it open for a sequel, and since it was made for a relatively small budget, it could possibly happen, which would only go to prove that studios only care about the money, and not about quality. The filmmakers thought that all it would take to make a movie is some special effects, but this film only goes to show what most people already know: a film shouldn't be designed around something meant to be an afterthought. 1.5/4 stars.