Skyline Review

• 14th Mar 2011

A bunch of beautiful, young things are partying in LA when blue lights start falling from the sky. People are drawn to the lights and sucked up by alien ships where their brains are harvested. On a trip to visit a friend in LA, Jarrod (Eric Balfour) and his pregnant girlfriend Elaine (Scotty Thompson), must fight to survive.

Watching Skyline is a slightly weird experience as you have a constant feeling that you’ve seen it all before. Alien ships over major cities? Independence Day and V. Big scary monsters rampaging through a city? Cloverfield and Godzilla. Tentacles probing a building? War of the Worlds. There’s also flashes of The Matrix, Starship Troopers and even The Phantom Menace. The feeling of déjà vu isn’t helped by the fact that most of the cast have those what-have-I-seen-him-in faces. Eric Balfour has been in everything from Buffy to Six Feet Under, though this is his first starring role. Donald Faison (Scrubs) is arguably the most well known face, closely followed by David Zayas (Dexter, The Expendables).

The special effects in Skyline are epic. The figures speak for themselves; the physical production only cost $500,000 and the visual effects were another $10 million. Kudos to the Strauss brothers for getting this made and distributed without the help of a major studio. There are a lot of wow moments but even the impressive CGI isn’t enough to sustain the rest of the film. The problem with Skyline is that it’s all style and no substance. Apart from the notable invasion scenes, most of which are observed through a handy telescope hooked up to the TV in the main dude’s apartment, nothing much happens until the finale, which feels like something from another film.

There’s little or no chemistry between the leads and the cheesy music and equally cheesy dialogue (‘Don’t you get it? We’re at war!’) only make things worse. With a charismatic star in the lead role, this film might have been raised above mediocrity but the lukewarm cast and derivative script continually let it down. No one seems interested in where the aliens have come from, why they’re there and what they want, all of which makes the proceedings all the more frustrating. There’s some spurious logic about going to the sea (as apparently the aliens are avoiding water) and a LOT of arguing about whether to stay or go… and even more about whether to open the blinds or not. There’s also a lot of irritating things like the fact that the girls keep getting changed, but no one ever eats or drinks anything.

Skyline will pass the time on a rainy afternoon, but if you only buy one alien invasion DVD this year, buy Monsters instead. It’s better.

The DVD extras are pretty standard and include commentary and deleted and alternate scenes.

Emma Wilkin