Skyline (2010) - Film Review

Simply another case of “The Trailer is the Movie” Skyline once again proves that budget spent on visual effects will not capture an audience enough to accurately tell a story. The film concerns a couple, Jared (Eric Balfour) and Elaine (Scottie Thompson) who are traveling to LA to meet with Jared’s childhood friend. His friend Ray (Neil Hopkins) is a wealthy special effects producer, although it is entirely irrelevant to the story and it seems more like a cliche wealthy rap artist. Ray invites them to their home for a night of partying and they wake up to find all hell has broken loose from an alien invasion that uses blue luminescence to trap its victims. Their never is an explanation for these events throughout the entire film and the ending only begs more questions. It felt as though it was rushed, animated and overly developed exposition to a much larger and much more interesting story. The film does capture any significant plot throughout and it is simply a special effects trip. Skyline seems to have been trying to progress into either a definable science fiction and then into a science fiction horror, but never really grasps either side of the coin. In these films that concern the “world takeover” it becomes necessary for the audience to know what is going on from a world view, even if the world view does not know what is going on. For example, in Independence Day, the government of the US was involved in the story and it meshed the characters together in a successful way. In that story, we knew as much as we possibly could about this aliens. In War of the Worlds, a science fiction horror, we knew from the character’s experiences the weaknesses of the creatures or invaders. We knew something about this invasion. In this film we are left with more questions than answers and simply no resolution of any kind. It seems like a film based on the idea, what if the aliens came and actually took over without a fight, and that’s it. Well it would suck, and making a film showing this wouldn’t change anything. It still sucks. That being said, Skyline would do well for audiences looking simply for some stunning visuals. But if your really looking for  something to watch for the weekend, this will more than likely be a disappointment.