I’ve just come back from watching Skyline and I’m afraid the experience was not good people! Since I’m tuned in today Twitter all day everyday, I’d heard that it was bad but after seeing it tonight, I have come to the conclusion that it’s worse than that!
Please note, this review is going to contain spoilers. This movie is so bad that I think I’m just going to tell you what happens for my own sanity but if this is a movie you’d like to see, please don’t read on……
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Directed by the Brothers Strause, Skyline follows two main characters Jarrod & Elaine (Eric Balfour & Scottie Thompson) who go to see a friend Terry (Donald Faison) for his birthday and, in a nutshell, he’s rich. They vaguely explain how he’s rich but to be honest, I didn’t really understand it and it’s not really crucial to the story. Jarrod isn’t there too long before Terry asks him to stay in LA to work with him. This annoys Elaine (Scottie Thompson) as she hates LA, she probably doesn’t realise how much she hates as little does she know but during her first night in the city, it’s about to be invaded but big blue light beams that we’ve seen in the posters and trailers. You quite frankly don’t care about Terry as he’s a rich showoff who likes cheating on his girlfriend which leaves you with only Jarred and Elaine to worry about. Very early on, we discover that Elaine is pregnant which I think is supposed to be the catalyst for you to care about her but the problem is, you never really do!
‘Day 1’ begins and upon waking up there’s a whole, sequence where we see our would be hero, Jarrod looking out of the window, about to get sucked into the ball of blue light which is resonating from the sky (by the end of the movie, you wish he had been!). After going rather veiny, the curtains get pulled and he’s cut off from the blue beam (which from this moment on will be called BB). Now I’ll tell you here, this is the point where you might as well get used to our ‘heroes’ being pulled into the BB as it must happen 4 or 5 times to each character before they actually get sucked in. This seems odd considering we see shots of entire cities being pulled up into the spaceships which at this point have now dropped out of the sky and are hovering over the city in true Independence Day style.
After being trapped in their penthouse apartment for a night, our characters decide it’s time to make a run for it. Their plan is to get to a boat and sail off into the sunset. “Thank goodness” I thought to myself as the whole movie shot in one room was starting to get on my nerves. Down to the basement they go and Terry jumps in his Ferrari so that he can ‘get the boat started as fast as possible’ while the others jump into a Mercedes which probably goes like a rocket anyway!
The reason that they are separated soon becomes clear as the split second Terry leaves the garage, a giant alien is ready to stamp on him! Killing his passenger (Crystal Reed), he manages to escape only to be coiled back in by the giant tentacles that come off BB Alien (now known as BBA!). Hooray I shouted for that was one character I didn’t care about gone from the movie! I forgot to mention that just before Terry got eaten, a couple of new characters who were also trying to escape had been introduced in the car park. They might as well have been wearing red outfits from Star Trek as they we’re obviously BBA fodder!
As predicted, in comes another BBA on the hunt for some human blood! Man gets got, followed by lady who tries to save him and there we have it, Star Trek ‘Reds’ destroyed! At this point we’re re-introduced to Oliver (David Zayas) who was in the movie earlier. He’s just saved the day for Star Trek Red female only for her to die anyway and now they’re on the run again. Hooray I shouted as our cast finally made it out of their hotel, across the courtyard and….. back into the hotel again!!!! “PLEASE LEAVE” I cry but no, 2 minutes later, we’re back in the hotel room where we started looking out of the same window yet again!
Yet another day passes stuck in the hotel room (yawn, yawn), and Jarrod decides yet again that they need to leave the hotel. But yet again I get my hopes up but I needn’t have bothered although what came next was rather fun as the US Military decide to send drone and Stealth bombers in to nuke the crap out of the aliens! This bit was actually quite good and made me realise if it had been a military, strategic movie, it could have actually been quite good. Drones attack, Mini BBA’s come out to counter attack but the nuke is launched and KABOOM! Down go the aliens. Only they’re related to those ones from Batteries Not Included and start to repair the mothership. Not under threat from radiation and BBA’s, our ‘heroes’ have a little argument about whether to leave or not. This is the point where I’m hoping radiation might strike and kill them all so I can go to Ikea next door to the cinema and get some meatballs!
Our heroes, look out of the window (again!!!) and see the Army land on the roof. Yet another argument ensues about whether they’re going to save them or not! “I hope not I think to myself” and then they go on the roof. Yay, out of the hotel room.
Now comes some shooting from army, shouting from ‘heroes’ BBA’s flying around and climbing up walls. Then an F-22 (fighter jet) decided to shoot at the BBA that is attacking our ‘heroes’, F-22 get’s hit and hits the ground just in front of them. Cue slow motion roll over our ‘heroes’ heads! I mean WHAT?!!? No, I am not joking!
Oliver has been left in hotel room with blonde girl, Candice (Brittany Daniel) who has just been sucked into BB and gone forever. This is when Oliver decides the only way he can go out is to turn on the gas. Only issue is, his cigarette lighter doesn’t work. Cue BBA coming through the window to get him! BBA drags him away from the counter, F-22 shoots BBA in the back and Oliver is free to gather up lighter which has now decided to work and… KABOOM another character gone! Yippee, two to go! Back on the roof, Mothership BBA is coming for ‘heroes’! “Eat them” I cry as there is no way out. Eat them it does! Yay, the end!!?
Cut to the next day to see London, New York and another city which had no famous landmarks that I could spot taken over by aliens. It now HAS to be the end, surely!!
Oh no! Cut to inside Mothership BBA to see Alien in true Starship Trooper style sucking the brains out of people. Now, remember a while ago I said that people kept getting sucked in by BB only to then get cut off from the beam. Well, it turns out that this makes you extra strong. Who knows why, but it does! So when BBA inside Mothership BBA eats Jarrod’s brain, Jarrod takes over BBA’s body and goes and rescues his pregnant wife Elaine. Yes, it’s true, that really does happen and …. cut to closing credits….
THE END! (There may well have been something after the credits but by that tie, the Ikea meatballs were calling much too hard and I couldn’t take any more of this!)
This movie is a mixture of Starship Troopers, Independence Day, The Matrix, Cloverfield and War of the Worlds but isn’t as good as any of them. I really think if the movie had focused on the military rather than just a group of actors that you don’t really care about, they might have had something. The scope of Independence Day is so massive and maybe this couldn’t have been so big but I know this could have been a better movie if they’d just found a more interesting storyline. Why oh why did we stay in that hotel for the entire movie? Who knows, but I know I wont be recommending this to people. Sorry!
The One Positive Point!!
You have to hand it to the chaps in the visual effects department as if this movie has one positive, it’s the special effects. Seeing monsters walking through the city, space ships hovering over it and nukes smashing into them was excellent. Including the drones which carried the missiles. That bit, I did enjoy which leads me back to my point about this movie focusing on the military aspect. Had they done that more, I think it would have been far more interesting and I’m sure I’d have enjoyed it more than I did!
Have you seen it? What did you think? Tell us in the comments below…..
