Skyline

Skyline

This is a sci-fi, monster movie in the tradition of . . . all those other sci-fi monster movies. Like Godzilla. I really liked Godzilla.
In some ways it is fairly derivative. It has elements of Cloverfield in it (although the camera manages to stay still), as well as Independence Day, and even War of the Worlds. That is not necessarily an indictment, but it should be noted.
The only actor I recognized was Donald Faison, who played Dr. Turk in Scrubs.
It starts out in a predictable way; a couple is flying to LA to visit his recently rich and successful friend (Faison.) They party, crash, and wake up with a weird blue light shining into the luxury apartment. Like Cloverfield, they have no idea what’s going on, and neither do we. Some action occurs as they try to figure things out, but then huge construction things appear—pretty clearly alien technology but not really looking like starships other than they can float silently and apparently indefinitely. Huge monster thingies show up, stumping around the city, sucking up people—which the ship-machines are also doing—by the thousands. Then little runabouts exit the big ships a la Independence Day, except they might not be machines, and an air battle ensues.
But unlike Independence Day the story stays small, dealing with just a few people trying to survive, which was part of what made Cloverfield so effective. In fact, the protagonists (the few who live long enough to be in most of the film) never leave the luxury high-rise.
There must be an unwritten and highly hypocritical rule in Hollywood because the biggest star—the black guy—again gets killed before the halfway point. Go figure. I’m surprised he wasn’t wearing a red jersey.
I kind of liked how the people never find out anything about what’s going on. They are totally ignorant going in and coming out. The military arrives, and nukes one of the big ships, which crashes, but then it begins to reassemble itself which is creepy.
The pace is pretty good and the tension maintains a respectable level, just under spontaneous incontinence. Some of the scenes involving the aliens are grotesque, but not in a slasher kind of grotesque, more in an alien kind. I’m not sure why that matters, but it does.
The story tried to concentrate on the people and the interpersonal dynamics, but it is not entirely successful. Nothing happened onscreen to compel me to care about the protagonists, other than in the fairly abstract “fellow humans” kind of way. I think Cloverfield did a better job of that.
I got the impression that a bunch of gung-ho young Turks in the Effects industry got together and said “hey, let’s put together a project that will showcase what we can do.” For me, the special effects seemed to be the real star of the show. “We can do it in the barn!”
There was no skin and I don’t remember any cussing. Some gore, but to my jaded eye it was not extreme. Some of it could be pretty scary for some people.
It’s rated PG-13, which was about right.
I have to warn you though, if you’re planning to see it, that the ending is a little freakish. Highly unusual and very un-Hollywood. It will not be satisfying to the general movie-going audience. But I thought it was great and very compatible with the rest of the movie.
It was fun, but not a home run. I’m glad I saw it, and recommend it to Newell and James (who, like me, will go see anything) and Clark, to be specific. Let’s give it a 7.5 out of 10.
Now, for those of you who do not plan to see it, let me tell you a little more about the ending.
SPOILER ALERT



There is no ending. We never know what the aliens are doing or why they are there, but they are definitely winning. The two main characters do not escape. Both are sucked up into the big ship where some kind of biologic-machine-hybrid things are harvesting nervous systems—brains, spinal cord and main nerves, and giving them to the aliens who are ingesting them. The male lead gets his brain sucked out (the aliens detect a fetus in the female lead and do not de-brain her). But something goes wrong and the male lead somehow survives in some weird, para-normal sense, and takes over the body of the decidedly homely alien. He then begins to protect his “girl” from the other aliens, the screen goes dark and the credits begin to roll. I can’t even say it ended in a cliff-hanger—the aliens are clearly going to win. Like I said—there is no ending.