When I was originally writing this late review Harry Potter was just opening and I knew I had no chance of catching Harry and Co as it was a weekend and after the 2 previous disasters standing in a queue only to be told movies full I took no chance. So 2 weeks no movies I’m getting withdrawal symptoms and I was working this weekend so I opted for a movie from the weekend before SKYLINE. I’ve been keeping a close eye on the reviews of the movie andI was eager to see how bad the movie really was been reviewed to be,so with movie pass in one hand I went to see the movie and boys & girls its bad or as we say here in the west of Scotland …its pish!

The plot for the movie is simple we have Jarrod (Eric Balfour) with his girlfriend Elaine (Scottie Thompson) head to the city of angels Los Angeles to meet up and celebrate with Jarrod’s now rich buddy Terry (Donald Faison) birthday. The big party is at Terry’s top floor penthouse suite which is full of rich & famous of LA do drink, socialise, take drugs, play loud music, have sex in toilets, argue and spy on neighbours via a telescope. At this point the arguing is with our movies ‘heroes’ elaine, Jarrod as a partygoers spills the beans that Terry wants Jarrod to be working for him in LA but Jarrod never been asked and as usual the other partner thinks he’s been hiding the truth and she spills the beans that she’s pregnant but also throw in the fact Terry is a love cheat too, the party ends now for an invasion!

The movie does get off to a positive start with the action starting right away with those big blue beams of light towering down over the city as our weary partygoers try their best to sleep off their hangover, but as there all drunk the room lights up they think it’s daytime already. As this point, we get our first glimpse of how the alien invaders abduct the humans but from here we get subjected to about 35 minutes of partying and everything in quality goes dow hill from here.

You always have to give brief introduction of the characters but you try to keep it to a minimum possibly spoon feeding us a little at a time keeping a bit of mystery but in Skyline it was just an extended party scene which we only learn Terry’s rich, love cheat, but shows he’s rich and Jarrod & Elaine are your average Joes. As for the other characters Terry’s actual girlfriend Candice(Brittany Daniel) they made her look like she’s only interested in the money and Denise (Crystal Reed) she is Terrys other love interest.

When it comes to an enemy you always curious to know what they look like and these brain-robbing nasty bunch of croutons are nothing more than a rip off The Matrix Octopus hunters that searched out and destroyed any human life and guess what they do the same in Skyline too! As for other movie influence, you can include independence day, Transformers, War of The Worlds and even my favourite movie Dawn of The Dead!

Skyline felt like a 5-minute job like a home movie which you just go with the flow but this was a home movie with no thought and care, it ay work for some movies but this one it was a big no!!! With sci-fi/invasion movies your world is your oyster as in what you can do to a storyline, the movie had lots of potential to be a good movie but it felt like Strause brothers had sat down, lets make a invasion movie, introduce our characters bring n some aliens and then ran out of ideas on what to do next. Our ‘heroes spent a god percentage of the time lumbered up in Terry’s penthouse suite walking around the house, sitting, arguing about how are they going to get to the harbour to Kerry’s boat (mmm trapped in a building, wanting to escape on a boat sounds like a plot from a certain Zack Snyder Dawn of the dead movie, mmm?!!) and what did the people have a protection against the aliens outside? a black cover, fantastic, we have the brainboxes of the year, I wonder of the Korean situation escalates and we get world war 3 I think I’ll stick a black bed cover up on my window and I’ll be saved from the fallout!!!

The other potential arch was the fact Jarrod had twice been blasted by the blue beams but he survived whilst the rest of us mere mortals were scooped up into the mothership for our membership into the brain swap meet. With 2 blasts of blue light Jarrod now has enough strength to take out one of our tenticled nasties making popeye give up spinach and Hulk to go blue, but why did Jarrod get the strength? no explanation but don’t worry boys & girls things are getting worse from here.

No such thing as third time lucky in this movie as Jarrod & Elaine finally get zapped into the mothership and next we see pregnant elaine crawling through the ship on all fours and its like she’s been dumped right into a swinger party gone wrong, I wonder if it’s in Manchester? If you love meatballs you’ll love the ending as we find out where our brains go into a meatball head monster, Jarrod’s first to get his brain taken out, Elaine’s next but don’t worry Jarrod the brain monster is here to the rescue, the end!!! What the f**k was that all about?!!! I havent laughed that much since a friend told me that Twilight was a intelectual movie which should have won the oscar for best movie.

Skyline in my opinion would have possibly worked better as a mini-series or even a tv movie similar to the form of the walking dead, with us finding out about the characters as they develop through the episodes, think about it majority of the actors in this movie where tv actors and they would have been more comfortable in tv surroundings as they were out of there depth in this. Whats worrying now is that the Strause brothers have indicated a sequel is on the cards but where can they go with this movie and after that poor movie do we really want to see a second one? If it does get made it maybe advisable to make a tv movie or even a direct to DVD release.

Lets finish on a postive note Skyline’s special fx where second to none and it shows the brothers ability in special fx makes them some of the best in the industry, think about they where involved in Avatar so maybe work more on special fx maybe a better idea of moviemaking. I did really like the Aliens versus army scenes but once again very minimal possibly should have had more as it made humanity very weak and the aliens undefeatable though it is good to see an invasion movie where humanity is doomed no matter how much we fight back instead of the usual Hollywood American will save the day trash.

★ | Paul Devine

Sci-fi, action | USA, 2010 | 15 | 12th November 2010 (UK) | eOne UK | Dir.Colin Strause, Greg Strause |Eric Balfour,Donald Faison, Scottie Thomspon, Crystal Reed,David Zayas

Originally posted at The Peoples Movies | 3rd December 2010