Review #15: 'Skyline' (2010)

I wanted to comment on a more recent film, that is of Hollywood descent, and that also could inform a more critical review. One that will, in fact, give me a more acerbic writing style from my previous (mostly positive) musings. So, out of sheer knowing - that is, I knew this film would be a steaming pile of shit - I decided to watch Skyline. I was attracted to this project as an object of despise, as it was directed by "the brothers Strause". Now, forgive me for judging, but anyone who is given the role of directing a film from the starting point of an F/X team, is surely going to be a miss (just look at Stan Winston's Pumpkinhead (1988) - God rest his soul). Whilst they had one previous outing in the for of Alien Vs Predator: Requiem (2007), their previous film output was for the special effects of films such as The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008), 2012 (2009), and 300 (2006). An impressive array of films, crossing genres are to their name - in F/X. Just please, don't let them direct films!!!

Skyline tells the story of a bunch of vacuous twenty-somethings who have congregated in an LA apartment block for a party to 'inaugurate' Jarrad (Eric Balfour) into a life in the music industry that he lost out on in younger youth. He has been invited to this 'party' (although, I've been to more exciting parties in a war-zone), with his girlfriend (maybe fiance, I couldn't care less - and who is played by some pretty, unconvincing girl) to join in on 'the business'. Well, anyway, the next day, there have been some alien 'lights' landing around the apartment and generally sucking people up in alien 'spaceships', cultivating human brains - well, I'm sure they're tasty! These people are then spat out as giant gorilla-robot style aliens. What will they do with themselves once they've gobbled us all up? I don't care! Well, the light is rained on the folk and we find out that people are drawn to this before being taken by the aliens. And their eyes and the skin surrounding said eyes, turns all veiny!

I think the party sequence really triggers this movie into the juvenile bullshit that it really occupies. In a 'party' sequence, the revelers are watching as an occupant of a parallel apartment gets a blowjob, in quite a disturbingly voyeuristic scene. The parties reverie is palpable, until the person giving head is suddenly revealed as being another male. the 'audience' recoils in disgust. It's just a little on the 'right' side of homophobic. But this element just prepares you for the onslaught of vile, vacant character plotting that fills the film with my utter contempt.

The films 'characters' are occupied by the sort of inane people you might find on a TV 'reality' show such as Celebrity Love Island. Its the kind of person that may on the surface look pretty, but has no redeeming qualities whatsoever, and I would be happy to see mangled in some kind of painful Grand Guignol fashion, for my pleasure. Unfortunately, these are the people that get on in life.

It does play like the beginning of a really bad sci-fi channel series, a pilot for a season that we wish would never be. It has a large amount of brickolage in the sense that, every visual and character idea is something that you have seen in countless films before this (Independence day (1996), 2005's War of the Worlds - to name just two). I think the only thing that may possibly redeem this project is the special effects which are relatively good. Although, as I previously said, they are simply lifted ideas from other films (or am I supposed to say 'homage'?).

The acting in this film is beyond reproach. Ok, maybe the characters are all generic and have not been given any kind of arc, but there is no redeemable performance. I have seen better acting in the particles of bile in my vomit after a particularly heavy (and food-free) night of drinking. Each acidic bubble trying to explode first in a mission to out-act the bursting of the previous one. I can find nothing in this film, other than it wasted 2 hours of my life. I almost found myself becoming jealous of their characters lured into the light of the alien ships, as they had their eyes burnt out. An event that could not come sooner whilst watching this atrocious excuse for and over-expensive, generic piece of shit.


Directed by: Colin Strause, Greg Strause
Starring: Eric Balfour, Scottie Thompson, Brittany Daniel
Country: USA

Rating: *

Marc Ivamy