Man, yet another science fiction movie that has essentially shattered my realm of fantasy with one of the prettiest pieces of shit that I have ever seen. The trailer had me, it really did. I saw that teaser trailer and thought that this was going to be amazing, something utterly incredible to watch and behold. I was talking about it on forums and I was discussing about it with people at the local comic book shop I frequent. Sci-fi nerds like me were ready for some sort of mass, alien invasion battle movie. And then when the movie happened….silence.
A series of blindingly bright lights appear all over Los Angeles, mesmerizing the citizens of the city while luring them to an uncertain fate in this sci-fi thriller from sibling filmmakers Greg and Colin Strause. As speculation regarding the origin of the mysterious lights runs rampant, a Los Angeles entrepreneur (Donald Faison), his best friend, Jarrod (Eric Balfour), and Jarrod’s frightened girlfriend (Scottie Thompson) struggle to resist temptation as they seek out the source of the luminous threat. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
As I said above, Skyline is probably the prettiest looking shit I have seen this far into the November movie torture I am going through. Oh the movie still sucks about as hard as a Dyson vacuum, but it’s the most appealing pile of shit out there. While overly CGI heavy, I at least was able to let my eye get fucked while sitting through a movie in which I was rooting for the aliens to kill off these main characters. The movie had me though, it had me with the trailer. That trailer was amazing and in all honestly, why didn’t the person who made the trailer make the movie?
Where to begin with the movie? How about the characters that we are supposed to care about. First, there not a single, likeable human being amongst the group. They are obnoxious and self-centered, a double whammy of perfect characterizations that audience members love to connect with (as he said with a sarcastic voice). They are the most arrogant and brash human beings ever in the movie, making me wish that they get their sweet release from life. They apparently cheat on their girlfriends as it happens during the first 20 minutes of the movie. During a scene where they are peeping at people through a telescope, they recoil at the sight of two gay men who just happen to be finishing their coitus. So great, now the main characters are homophobes, totally want them to perish now. Thankfully they are dispensed in such an immediate fashion that you hardly remember their names or even that they existed.
The movie itself is so audaciously bad. It all takes places in this fortress loft that the characters are holed up in. They never even really leave the confines of the apartment as the directors were more concerned with the visuals instead of making an attempt at giving us a descent sci-fi movie. This apartment building is a fortress for a reason, mainly because it SURVIVES A NUCLEAR BLAST that takes place just maybe 2 miles from it’s location. The windows don’t even blow out! This apartment is apparently built to nuclear apocalypse code and survives the blast with maybe a bit of charring.
Skyline is just this visual spectacle with absolutely nothing else to offer the audience. It is the least inspiring Alien Invasion movie since I watched The Watch back in July. It all takes places in the confines of one place and never ventures out to the open world where the military was battling these giant invaders. Instead we are stuck watching the minutes tick by, waiting for when each character will get sucked up into the hoover vacuum that is the alien space ship. I hated this movie, feeling duped that I was going to get a visually dazzling movie but instead everything in the trailer is pretty much all the good things about this. They did the right thing by not showing any dialog or even showing us the actors in the movie cause I am sure their bro-ness and obnoxious personalities would immediately turn me off of the movie. There was so much potential to be had with the concept that the squandering of the premise irritates me to no end. Shit I realize that Battle LA was a bad movie, but at least that kept us entertained with cliche sayings and uninspiring dialog. Skyline just tried to hard to mesmerize you into believing you were getting a good possible movie, but then made you not give a shit about it from the go. Don’t even get me started on the ending of movie other than the fact that I was grateful it had an ending.
The sad silver lining of this movie, this is the highest rated one I have reviewed/watched since starting this terrible month of November movie watching at 14% on RottenTomatoes.com.
