Skyline

Skyline tells the story of Jarrod (Eric Balfour) and Elaine (Scottie Thompson), who fly to Los Angeles to meet Terry (Donald Faison), a friend of Jarrods. After a night of partying, they awake during an alien invasion, and all the madness that ensues. Directed by the Strause Brothers (Colin and Greg), a little clue as to the standard to be expected comes in the form of their only previous feature length film, Alien vs Predator : Requiem. Essentially, as fans of science fiction and both the Alien and Predator franchises, they took what they liked from the previous films and spliced them together, believing that they could re-energise a franchise with untold potential. Unfortunately, they failed. Miserably. So miserably in fact that their lack of imagination saw them lift shots directly from the original films and re shoot them. And if misery loves company, then Skyline is AVP:Requiem’s best friend.

From beginning to end, it seems as though we’ve seen all this before. It feels all too familiar, probably because it is. Beginning with the Cloverfield- esque late night party sequence that sees humanity enjoy their last moments of uninhibited freedom before the invasion, the highly technical alien beings descend upon earth and terrorise the city as in War of the Worlds, governed by an Independence Day type mothership. The humans fascination with the beauty of the light on show (remember Sunshine?), leads them to waltz into their own destruction, hovered up by alien pods, the kind recently seen in Terminator: Salvation.

Having said that, there is some originality and thought behind how the alien race functions; after the humans have been abducted and then deposited onboard the mothership, we eventually discover that they are essential to the expansion of the alien race, who are, perhaps, intent on colonization.. This is never built upon however, and like most aspects of the film it feels under developed.

Much too often are introduced but not developed, for example when Jarrod speaks of his apparent development of super human power, which he has retained from his initial exposure to the light in an early part of the film. It neither becomes a figment of his imagination, nor does he really exhibit power that would suggest him to be the genuine last, great hope of humanity which is alluded to by the dramatic execution of the dialogue in the first place.

Despite drawing inspiration from some of the great (and not so great) science fiction films of our time, Skyline fails spectacularly at seriously electing itself into the genre, instead becoming more or a comedy as time passes. The entire film eventually seems to become a parody of itself, even down to the very final scene with a depiction of what is meant to be an heroic finale. Unintentionally, of course.

What is even more disappointing about the film itself is that it threatened to be what War of the Worlds couldn’t. With the humans appearing hopeless and ultimately unlikely to be salvaged by basic earth borne bacteria, the outlook is extremely grim this time around. The portrayal of the extinction of our race is a rare commodity in cinema, and the boldness of suggesting this could well have allowed this to become a science fiction classic. Not to mention the fact that the race itself looks very impressive, with much of the airborne creations in particular beautifully crafted and could potentially have become a genre favourite.

Overall though, Skyline is a farcical attempt at piecing together a sci-fi blockbuster, and it fails to a massive extent having promised so much.

Rating:

1/5