Skyline

Where does one start with a movie like Skyline?  The film had a great concept and awesomely original alien designs, but unintentionally made the entire audience laugh out loud at its sheer awfulness.  Seeing that this is from the same “Brothers Strause” who directed the sequel to Alien vs. Predatro: Requiem , I don’t know what I was expecting.  For some reason, I was really looking forward to this movie as I am an admittedly big fan of alien invasion flicks - I was a fool.

Skyline tells the story of two guys and their girlfriends who party the night away one night in downtown Los Angeles.  As they sleep off their drunken debauchery, strange alien crafts begin landing in the city and abducting people.  Now, our heroes must either barricade themselves in the penthouse they’re staying in or escape their skyscraper prison to find help.

I have two monumental sized problems with this film.  For one, it is important for the audience to care for the characters to which they’re supposed to spend an hour and a half with.  I didn’t care for these characters in the slightest. They tried to make one pregnant and opted up this half-assed love story, but that didn’t make me feel worried about them when they were in peril.  How could I care for these rich, gallivanting, and one dimensional douche bags?  The reason Independence Day, or any other alien invasion film for that matter, works so well is that the main characters are middle class and relatable.  I don’t care what some rich producer and his friends are doing when aliens attack.  I want to know what an average person would do.

Problem number two, the writing is abysmal.  The dialogue is cheesy and the actors make it worse with their awful performances.  Throw in a cheap sounding score and a weird subplot where the lead character seems to have some connection to the aliens (which leads to an ending that rips off District 9 so bad it isn’t even funny) and you have a pretty awful alien invasion flick on your hands.  In terms of a silver lining, if you’re someone who likes to watch bad movies for laughs, Skyline might not be a waste of time after all.  Believe me when I say that it is an absolute riot.