Review: Skyline

Grade: F

In Los Angeles, a couple old friends are getting back together for one of their birthdays. After a long night of partying, everyone passes out only to be woken up by mysterious blue lights. These blue lights wake up most of Los Angeles and draws people towards them like a moth to the flame and disappear. The next day the blue lights return but this time alien crafts begin to appear and begin to suck people up by the thousands. It’s an alien invasion and weird alien creatures, large and small, are roaming the city taking any people they can find and seem to be indestructible. A small group of people band together in order to survive and maybe even try to fight back against the strange aliens.

Wow, that is really all I have to say. I saw the trailer for this movie and was intrigued by it but my expectations were about as low as they can get, and Skyline didn’t meet those expectations. It is amazing to me how bad this movie is. Much like I predicted from the trailer, it seems that the makers of Skyline blew their entire budget on special effects then hired second and third rate actors and ignored story, plot, believability, science and everything else. The movie looks spectacular and very realistic, but that is about it. The acting and writing was absolutely terrible. You know how when you watch a movie, specifically horror type movies, and you can just tell who is going to die because the character is a douchebag of some sort and is just asking for it? That is every character in the movie. I hated every single character in this movie, they were all simply bad people. This movie is also completely unoriginal, stealing bits and pieces from War of the Worlds, V, Cloverfield and a dash of Independence Day. I mention that this movie ignores science because once you find out why these aliens are here, I personally think, knowing what I know about biology and evolution, that a creature like these could possibly exist. Lastly, for now, the ending of this movie is absolutely horrible and will make you leave the theater with hatred in your heart.

The movie stars Eric Balfour (The Spirit, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) plays the lead character, Jarrod. Aside from looking like a male Sarah Jessica Parker, he is a terrible actor and I kind of hated his wussy, dumb character. David Zayas (The Expendables, TVs Dexter) plays Oliver, a manager of the building the group is hiding in. When you first meet Oliver, he seems like a nice character, but after the invasion, he becomes a huge jerk and you want him to die. Scottie Thompson (TVs NCIS?) plays Elaine, Jarrod’s girlfriend. This is the only somewhat decent character in the movie, but you still never really care for her. The movie also features bad performances from Donald Faison, Brittany Daniel, Crystal Reed and Neil Hopkins.

Skyline is a very good looking movie but is very painful to actually watch and sit through. On top of being a bad movie, I can almost guarantee that we will be seeing a sequel. Seriously, do not watch this movie, and if you absolutely must, wait for DVD and rent it from Netflix or at Red Box.

Great quote: “We need to go to the top floor, it’s the safest place to be.”