"Skyline" has an interesting, however unoriginal, story with some thought-provoking dialogue. However, it still manages to fall flat, due to lackluster performances and hokey CGI well-suited for a Redbox straight-to-DVD rental. These faults prove this outing, from the Strause brothers, to be painfully forgettable.
The film revolves around a group of people trapped in Los Angeles as hordes of citizens are harvested by alien invaders. Jarrod, played by Eric Balfour, is stuck in a luxurious apartment complex with his girlfriend, Elaine (Scottie Thompson), Denise (Crystal Reed), his best friend Terry (Donald Faison) and Terry's girlfriend, Candice (Brittany Daniel). After a late night partying, the group is awoken by strange lights shining brightly through the curtain. As one man is pulled towards the light, strange markings start to appear around his eyes and all over his entire body and then,in the blink of an eye, he is gone. This sets off a chain of events that send this group of people on a mission for survival.
This movie's biggest faults are how easily things are forgotten and how poorly they are explained. The visuals are a step above SyFy channel movies,but there is still a huge gap between this movie and movies such as Steven Spielberg's "War of the Worlds." When the audience does finally get its first glimpse of the alien creatures, they are surrounded by strange unflattering waves,makingit difficult to make out what they really look like.
The film also suffers from poor performances and overacting. Numerous characters end up screaming in the movie and all of them seem forced or overdone to the point where some members of the audience whinedfor the characters to shut up.
Though the acting may have been dreadful, the dialogue was not. The dialogue had substance and meaning, but the actors and actresses just were not giving it their all—or did not know how to. Jumping from dialogue to the overall story, one would think the two were written by separate people. The dialogue of the script should have shared some of its spunk with the story, since thisis where the film lacked immensely.
The movie is about survival. It shares its cookie cutter plot with a host of other alien invasion movies, and it has simply been done better. In a vain attempt to give the movie more substance, there are two obligatory scenes in which we find out what happens to the victims of the alien invasion. These scenes make an attempt to give purpose for the invasion, but it is never completely clear. While the audience is pondering the reason why the aliens are here, they are constantly dealing with characters dying, and Elaine being extremely irritating, with her overly dramaticyelling and flailing of limbs.
Movies like "Skyline" are easily forgotten because more time was spent on trying to dazzle folks than working on a unique and memorable storyline. The trailermay have pulled audiences in, but the poor story and mediocre acting sent them plummeting away.
"Skyline" receives a 5 out of 10
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