"Skyline" Review

Skyline--2 out of 5 stars.

Well, it's not all bad, but unfortunately, very little of it is good either. What I liked was that the story wasn't told in the typical military perspective, like most alien movies. Instead, it focuses on "real" everyday people. But the problem is that these people aren't very real, believable, or likable. So, the film's biggest potential strength is ruined by its biggest problem. The acting ranges from passable to just really bad. There are brief moments when I like the characters, and then other times when I think they're just useless idiots. A lot of their behavior just didn't make any sense, which doesn't help their cause. The film gives us no reason to care about these characters at all, so when several of them die, no one cares.

The film starts out good. It throws the audience right into a situation that is fairly exciting and mysterious. But then it does a completely useless flashback of the previous day, where basically we watch as nothing important happens for 20 minutes. I'm not exaggerating. Literally, nothing of significance happens in those 20 minutes of just getting to know characters that you know are going to be killed off anyway.

Considering the film's low budget, the special effects aren't bad. But the look of the aliens were definitely ripped off from other movies. The Matrix, among others, comes to mind. The aliens, after just a short while, just weren't very scary or menacing. We saw too much of them, and too many people died too frequently. The suspense was definitely lacking. And it doesn't help that we don't care about any of the characters in the first place.

I guess I just found this movie kind of boring. There was no sense of humor whatsoever, and most of the dialogue was painfully dull. The action sequences weren't exciting at all, and the ending was completely unsatisfying. It tried to be a twist ending, but it was pretty darn predictable. Worse than that though, it ended just when it started getting somewhat interesting. And I stress somewhat. But yeah, it just stopped, as if the writer got a hand cramp, and just couldn't go on anymore. Completely useless ending. They obviously expect to make a sequel, but based on the fact that basically no one liked it, and it's not making much money, the sequel is not going to happen. And the world of cinema is better off without one.