Skyline (by Brogan)

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World taught me something: a movie trailer doesn’t always tell about the quality of the film. Maybe Skyline has taught me that my previous theory is just that, a theory. Skyline, if you didn’t already know, is a movie about aliens attacking earth.  Now to be fair and warn you, there is a high chance of me handing out spoilers in this review. However, don’t stop reading. You may not care that I spoiled this once we’re done.

It starts with Elaine and Jarrod (played by Scottie Thompson and Eric Balfour respectively) being awakened in the middle of the night by strange blue light hitting the streets of Los Angeles. Jarrod is drawn to the lights as black veins stretch across his face and body, and almost immediately we cut to “15 hours earlier” (this movie thinks you’re stupid and puts time passage markers all over) as they’re arriving in L.A..  They are there for their friend Terry’s (played by Donald Faison of Scrubs fame) party. This is the point where all hell breaks loose and people keep dying left and right, but to be honest I stopped caring when (I guess) I learned that L.A. party-goers like to spy on people masturbating through high-tech telescopes.

Skyline is a mess. At first I just don’t like the characters, but then I grow to just not care. The CGI is just awful; the aliens look piss-poor, the people are stiff and not-detailed, and explosions are just… blah.  All the times when this film could have had some effectiveness are ruined. They show the aliens almost immediately and without build-up, not to mention the earlier bit with “15 hours earlier” serves no purpose other than to tell us what they’re doing there and Elaine is pregnant (which barely plays any role until barely at the very end of the film).

Oh, here’s one of the spoilers I was talking about: the aliens are here to harvest human brains! You read that right, human brains.Yes, the major motivation behind the villains of this film is barely enough to sustain a one-shot villain in a SyFy original series. Sound ridiculous? It should. Obviously not to the Brothers Strause though. This movie is meant to be totally serious and scary.  The film acts like it’s Cloverfield from time to time using similar camera work, sets and occasionally film quality. Wait a minute, Cloverfield is not a fair comparison to Skyline and should be offensive to the makers of Cloverfield.

With bad CGI, bad acting, bad writing, directing, and suspense, Skyline can’t even be a movie better than an episode of Torchwood. I’m not even going to get into how bad its stupid sequel-baiting ending was here.  It’s a film, with actors. Do not see Skyline. I give it 26/100 points.