Skyline: Not enough

Most of Skyline's action takes place in an apartment - when all we want to watch is a war.

Skyline may be threadbare, shallow, meandering and yes, forgettable, but at the very least you have to hand it to the Brothers Strause for making a visually impressive movie on a shoestring budget.

Like their previous venture, AVP (2004), Skyline has been made for a relative trifle, around $15 million, which by Hollywood standards isn’t even enough to cover the caterer’s bill. Despite this, some scenes do take your breath away.

Opening on an airplane that is about to descend into LA, Jarred (Eric Balfour) and girlfriend Elaine (Scottie Thompson) are visiting friend Terry, a media big shot, (Donald Faison, Turk from “Scrubs”) for his birthday. After a raucous night, during which Elaine reveals that she’s pregnant, the revellers are all passed out on the floor only to be awakened by strange blue light shining into their condo, at once transfixing anyone who sees it and mutating them. Those that stare too intently at the light are snapped up by the floating alien craft emitting the light, and Jared, equally mesmerised, is barely saved by his friend. This minor incident is a precursor to a full fledged invasion, with scarab-like alien ships descending on the city in droves. The special effects in are quite impressive- in what is one of the most visually stimulating scenes in the film, thousands of peoples are sucked up into the mother ship simultaneously.

What one expects now is a typical human response to the invasion: now that the mother ship has released its spawn of walkers, floaters and Venus Fly Trap like creatures to wreak havoc on society, it is only fitting that the US army will sweep in to rescue hapless civilians. Instead, we get to see the ‘human side’ of the invasion- wishy washy responses and in some cases, overacting. Most of the ‘action’ takes place in the one lush apartment the protagonists are stuck in, the characters voyeuristically checking out the action outside through drawn blinds and a telescope. We do see flashes of the fray though, especially when the alien ships are hit by a squadron of drones (atleast they’re not bombing us) in a very thrilling sequence that really gets your blood pumping. But that is it. The rest of the film is basically just Jared trying to protect his pregnant girlfriend, even beyond the grave; this latter concept is slightly interesting but isn’t developed enough.

The film is very reminiscent of Independence Day and if you have happened to watch the trailer for Battle: Los Angeles (2011), Skyline is almost a footnote to that story. The film gets far too bogged down in the apartment whereas all we want is the aliens vs the army, and bloody, bloody murder. The ending is unique but had this novelty been introduced a littler earlier in the film, we’d have something to talk about. Of course one only expects cardboard cut outs as characters in a film like this but when the director chooses to focus on them more than on what’s going on outside, the result is what Skyline turns out to be — a cinematic mess.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 19^th, 2010.