By Ned Jordan
What if aliens invaded and everyone fell asleep? That's the question
that will inevitably be pondered by the anyone that watches Skyline. A
bunch of twenty-somethings convene at a Marina Del Rey high-rise condo that
probably has a monthly rent payment higher than the mean national annual income
for a birthday party. They're the kind of impossibly beautiful, infinitely
catty crowd that will have you instantly hoping each and everyone of them is
soon killed in some insidious way by the inevitable alien invasion. Making
matters worse, the aliens are in no hurry to comply. leaving you forced to watch
these beautiful on the outside, ugly on the inside partygoers enjoy themselves
for the first third of the movie. It's like being forced to watch a
half-hour episode of a boring reality TV show before the movie actually begins,
and at that point there's less than an hour left in the film. But that's
probably a good thing, because that next hour is filled with stiff and clichd
dialog, poor acting, and an absolutely ludicrous plot that leads up to an
ending that's so incredibly ridiculous it managed to make me laugh out loud.
At this point you should be forewarned that minor spoilers may appear from here
on it, but I promise not to reveal that ending so that you can enjoy it in its
full glory for yourself.
Once that party mercifully ends, large alien ships appear over the world's
cities and send out tentacled ships, large, brutish monsters, and a host of
other biomechanical creepies with the goal of hypnotizing people into walking
into their waiting arms so that they can be whisked away to the motherships
where their brains will be eaten. This entire invasion is observed from
the high-rise where the party took place the night before, and while the
survivors observe the slaughter in the city they spend all of their time arguing
about what to do and where to go without actually doing much or going anywhere.
There are some interesting special effects, primarily in the form of wide shots
of Los Angeles being decimated by the aliens, but its not enough to make the
movie interesting. Even though the actual alien invasion part of the movie
clocks in at under an hour, it feels more like three. The film touts that
it's from the "visual effects masterminds behind Avatar, Iron Man 2, and 300",
perhaps they should have enlisted the help of a writer, too.
This movie was reviewed on Blu-ray, and the one thing to its credit is that
the picture and sound quality are excellent. Bonus features include the
usual mix of commentaries as well as deleted, extended, and alternate scenes,
the latter of which won't matter much to those without a morbid curiosity to see
what didn't make the cut into the movie.
Final Rating:
