From directing duo The Brothers Strause (Alien v. Predator: Requiem) comes Skyline, wherein malicious aliens descend upon Los Angeles, and some other assorted cities around the world. A group of pretty TV actors (Eric Balfour, Scottie Thompson, Brittany Daniel) do what they can to avoid being crushed beneath the feet of giant robots, and yell at each other to “Run!”
If you’re going to make an SF movie like this, you can get away with the story being dumb and derivative if the FX are still cool, but these FX are not very cool at all. The little blue balls of lightning bring to mind Walter Hill’s legendary disaster Supernova rather than any better, more successful movie. And while a couple of the shots in the trailer suggest homages to Ridley Scott and Steven Spielberg (who need no introduction to SF fans), it seems more like a desperate grab for credibility than a legit thematic or aesthetic connection. The shots of the spaceships suggest a slicker, higher-budget tip of the hat to District 9, and the whole thing that made District 9 great was that it wasn’t slick or particularly high budget.
While it’s impossible to get a complete impression of a movie’s quality from its trailer, Skyline nonetheless fails to impress in any way whatsoever. If you’re an SF fan, you get the impression: you’ve seen this movie before. Lots of times. And it’s been better. Lots of times.
Danny Bowes is a playwright, filmmaker and blogger. He is also a contributor to nytheatre.com and Premiere.com.
I must be one of the few people on the planet that enjoyed Supernova. Ok, it was campy but I thought it had some genuine moments of cleverness.
The “Thump…pause…Thump” orchestration- your sign of Hollywood quality!
Anyway, I’m already not to impressed by the intelligence of the characters, given somone tried to drive out of Los Angeles. Hell, you don’t even really want to do that when it isn’t an emergency.
Then again, we got spared of the exciting scene of the characters roaring onto the freeway…and then getting stuck at the 405 interchange for an hour.
“The Brothers Strause (Alien v. Predator: Requiem)”… okay, I’m skipping this one. Have fun guys, no way in hell I’m watching another turd from these fellas.
The film cost a third of what District 9 did. And it really has no connection to it whatsoever. For someone who seems to be so asute on the legacy of Sci-fi simply name checking the last film in a long line of films that had an Alien ship hovering over the city, is fairly lazy.