Review: Skyline (2010)

Take equal parts The Matrix and Independence Day, add in a sprinkling of Cloverfield and a dash of Fiend without a Face, and mix well. Top off with a healthy batch of above average special effects and digital artistry. Cook at 375 degrees for 1 hour a 40 minutes and cover with an original idea or two and you have the Strause Brothers alien invasion feature Skyline. The film weaves together aliens, monsters, high concept spectacle and soap opera melodrama as a small group of humans struggle to survive as the film-makers follow the cookbook on how to make a science-fiction action flick. Skyline is directed by Colin Strause and Greg Strause and written by Joshua Cordes and Liam O’Donnell. Eric Balfour and Scottie Thompson headline with Donald Faison, David Zayas, Britney Daniel and Crystal Reed rounding out the supporting cast.

Jarrod (Eric Balfour) and Elaine (Scottie Thompson) arrive in Los Angeles to visit Jarrod’s longtime best friend and successful special effects producer, Terry (Donald Faison) who lives in the rooftop suite of a 20 story high rise. Together with Terry’s girlfriend Candice (Brittany Daniel) and Secretary Denise (Crystal Reed) and employee Ray (Neil Hopkins), they awake to find a series of bright lights beaming down from the sky. Jarrod barely escapes being drawn into the light that is abducting most of the city’s vast population. Soon after large alien spaceships lower from the skyline bringing with them smaller squid-like spacecrafts and large monstrous creatures that begin to comb the city for survivors. Realizing the aliens are not above the water, Jarrod and Terry decide to make a run for the marina only blocks away. Meeting up with Oliver (David Zayas) the Apartment's security guard, the group struggles to survive the alien’s advances and avoid their blue light.

The directors, Colin and Greg Strause (Aliens vs Predator: Requiem), and the writers, Joshua Cordes and Liam O’Donnell, make a great pairing. But this is not a compliment since both the writers and the directors are borrowing so heavily upon genre cliches and overused action film tropes. The writers seem to be following the Action Film Screenwriting for Dummies manual of film-making, adding in every formulaic element possible: the hero, the martyr, the pregnant girlfriend. All the character work is by the numbers. The hero is charming but struggles with the idea of becoming a family man. The best friend is likable, loyal to the hero but is cheating on his girlfriend. And the best friend’s girlfriend is Hollywood-pretty, shallow and mean. The big burly tough guy must sacrifice himself to save his new found friends. Meanwhile, the directors lift scene after scene from many of the recent successful action flicks. One scene is filmed with a shaky cam and awkward jump cuts, another is filmed in slow motion, another looks like it came out of a Michael Bey film, and yet another appears to have been shot for 3D in a "coming-at-you" sort of way. Technique after technique is used, but very inconsistently and rarely more than once. Thankfully though the Brothers Strause understand their special effects and they handle them masterfully. When the aliens are attacking in full force, the film manages to become very entertaining – even at its most preposterous moments. During the alien scenes, the movie looks astounding. Cordes and O’Donnell likewise provide the directors with ample opportunity to display their strengths with large scale battles, a variety of aliens and space craft, chase scenes – on foot, in the air and behind the wheel – and the film’s signature blue light.

The leads, Eric Balfour and Scottie Thompson, handle their characters well enough but have very little chemistry. Balfour’s distinctive, chiseled facial features provide a memorable canvas for the makeup work when he is under the influence of the aliens blue light making his eyes go white and his flesh turn dark and spidery. It’s quite striking and memorable. Scottie Thompson’s character is reduced to whimpering and worrying about her unborn child, standing a few steps behind the others until the clichéd moment where she needs to save the day. Their characters never seem to agree on what to do and, unfortunately, it undermines their situation, making them more distracting than compelling. This also cause their characters to never connect in a way the script wants them to, especially during the final act. Their final scenes together lack the emotional punch desired. Donald Faison manages to bring a fair amount of sympathy to his character. He works surprisingly better alone when investigating the other suites and confronting the aliens than he does when with the other cast. He is also supposed to be best friends with Eric Balfour, but they too don’t have the chemistry to pull it off. David Zayas (Angel Batista – Dexter) enters the films midway and bullies his way through the role. He never connects with any of the remaining characters nor the audience. He’s also given the film’s one-liner that could have easily been given to Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone or Bruce Willis. However, where in the Eighties it would produce a rousing cheer, in Skyline, it renders a dull groan.

But this is a Science Fiction feature, full of aliens and spaceships and special effects. That’s the draw and the film can easily succeed or fail on the strength of the effects alone. The CGI work in Skyline is amazing, visually exciting and professionally handled even if most of it feels borrowed. The alien spacecraft drop out of the sky like Independence Day. Some of the aliens look as if they just escaped the warehouse owned by the Wachowski Brothers and the alien creatures could have jumped off a screen playing Cloverfield. Regrettably all the masterful effects work ends up too familiar and therefore too distracting, diminishing the impact they should hold. And, add to that, as amazing as Skyline’s effects are, they end up paling in comparison to those movies they so resemble. The tentacle covered drones are slick, but the ones in The Matrix were better. The car-crushing, slobbering monsters are excellent, but the creature from Cloverfield was much more frightening. There’s a lot to behold in Skyline, borrowed and new, and it’s all woven together to an entertaining and spectacular blend, benefiting from the sum of its parts. And, buried in all the familiarity, lie a handful of scenes that are original and striking, such as the scene where one alien reveals the reason for the mass abductions, the battle between Jarrod and a drone, and final moments with Jarrod and Elaine trapped in the mother-ship.

Along the way, the filmmakers make some bizarre cinematic choices. For the most part the film is confined to the top floors of Terry’s high rise. While it provides the means to view the city and allow closer access to the events unfolding in the sky above, it is an unintelligent place to hold up – c’mon, the aliens are flying around, planes are firing missiles, escape is twenty stories down. Sure, the enormous creatures are on the ground, but that doesn’t stop them climbing up the side of the building like King Kong after Fay Wray. It also keeps the momentum a bit stagnant and repetitive. From the very beginning, there is no contact to anyone outside the small group. With the exception of the air battle seen from the telescope, the armed forces that land on an adjacent rooftop and a couple in the garage, no other humans are present. The television news stations are shown empty or off the air and the characters are unable to reach anyone by phone. They’re isolated and the situation never feels authentic. Ironically, the climax to the movie, the very final few minutes, is where the narrative finally kicks into high gear the begins to expose an engaging and thrilling premise, only to conclude just when it’s getting good.

Skyline is full of amazing shots with thrilling special effects work. However, once you get past the promising and exciting visuals, Skyline is a lackluster, uneven affair with boring characters and borrowed ideas. When the aliens attack, it proves to be kinetic, tense and enjoyable; however, the character moments are underwhelming and shallow. It’s just entertaining enough to kill an afternoon, but drags whenever the aliens are not present. In the end, the movie suffers from being too dependent on established sci-fi movie ideas of the past decade or so, too buried in its stereotypical character structures and too marred by overly familiar visuals to be as enjoyable as the stunning visuals themselves would promise.

2 out of 5

Cross-published on Widescreen Warrior