Skyline (dir. Colin & Greg Strause, 2010) – After a party, a group of friends wakes to find mysterious beams of blue light placing people in a trance.
Verdict
Aliens! Loud noises! What is happening? Help!
Review
To put it simply, Skyline is a three-day chronicle of the survivors in a alien-ridden dystopian future. To complicate it, I really could not. So there I sit in my comfortable theatre seat, feeling my brain atrophy from inactivity and wishing I had more popcorn.
Just like how the stock characters fall victim to the equally generic aliens, I fall victim to the narrative or the lack thereof. Obliteration continues. I start to snicker as tropes rain from the sky. Is it momentary craze? Permanent insanity? No matter, the unlikely hero(es) are here to save the day. What a laugh.
By now, my brain has completely ceased to function. I soon forget how ridiculous and silly it all is. The visual effects are, you know, kind of great. Spaceships! Blue lasers! Stormy clouds! Wait, is that Duke Crocker? Wow. I watch the destruction beautifully made and everything else, carefully unmade.
Well, I suppose some slashers are meant to be campy, and cornball romantic comedies just cannot work without being, well… cheesy. Similarly, Skyline seems deliberate in how over-the-top it all is. This alien invasion parody appears to be made for a very specific audience… which isn’t me. I stare at the rolling credits and wonder if Battle: Los Angeles will be any better.
