“What if Independence Day Sucked…”
Skyline (2010)
Rated PG-13
Every so often, I have to liven up this dreary little hole in the ground by selecting a movie that I know is going to be terrible, just to get that self-righteous feeling of I-told-you-so superiority out of my system. Plus, it’s fun to watch crappy movies that try too hard to be something they’re not every once in a while. This week’s selection does not disappoint in its putrid ability to disappoint. Skyline is one of those movies that is so bad, it actually is fun to watch.
This cinematic mockery was brought to us by The Brothers Strause (that would be Colin and Greg, the buffoons who ruined two classic sci-fi staples in one fell swoop by bringing us the abysmal Aliens vs. Predator – Requiem), who have an impressive resume doing various visual effects for some big time Hollywood blockbusters, but seem to completely lack any ability whatsoever to tell a decent story in the director’s chair. If there is any positive to this movie, it rests solely in the fact that the special effects look spectacular. They’re complete copies of things we’ve seen before, so they’re horribly unoriginal, but they do look cool. But let’s slash through a quick plot summary before I get to the myriad idiocies in this steaming heap of poo… Trust me, a plot rundown will not take long, because a paragraph or two cannot be much of an abridgment from the totality of the actual script.
The film takes place almost entirely in a posh L.A. condo owned by a rich young entrepreneur named Terry, played by Donald Faison (Scrubs TV series, Remember the Titans). Terry has invited his childhood friend Jerrod, played by Eric Balfour (Hellride, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre), to L.A. to offer him a job, and throws a party for his arrival. The next morning, they are awoken by strange glowing blue lights which entrance those who inspect them further and draw them to their doom, add in some neat looking special effects on the victims’ eyes and skin. The group quickly learns that the lights are bad, so they hang up sheets over the windows and close the blinds, which is of course the ultimate defense against peeping-tom alien invaders on the rampage. Terry grabs his pistol and Jerrod grabs his camera, and the duo decide to head up to the roof to see what’s going on. Once they lock themselves on the roof like the two idiots they are, they encounter, right hand up to God here, the squid-looking alien thingy from The Matrix. It’s got blue lights on it instead of red though, so it’s like, TOTALLY different.
Just in time, Jerrod’s girlfriend Elaine, played by Scottie Thompson (Star Trek), who has been dating him long enough to know what a twit he is, bursts through the locked door to save the two from the Matrix alien. She too is dazzled by the pretty blue lights, but the men finally manage to do something right and shove her inside, closing the door behind them. They return to the condo (protected by the bed sheets over the window, of course) and try to decide a new course of action. They have noticed that there are no alien ships over the ocean, and they consider getting on a boat and sailing out to sea. What they don’t consider is that the aliens are there to attack people, apparently, and since there are no people out in the ocean, it seems logical that there would be no aliens out there hunting for people…
Anyways, by this point I was rooting for the aliens. Now Terry decides they need another car, so he goes over to his neighbor’s house, an elderly man with an annoying tiny dog, to get the keys. Not to rescue his helpless geriatric neighbor, mind you, but to borrow his car. While there, the Matrix alien shows back up and shows another of its talents. While Terry and the old man cower in fear behind the kitchen table, the Matrix alien extends its tentacles and slowly searches the room for victims. You know, just like the probe in War of the Worlds (I never thought I’d say this, but even the Tom Cruise remake of the Orsen Welles classic was better than Skyline, and even though it was a remake, it was still more original). While the alien munches down on the old man, Terry is able to run screaming like a teenage girl at a Justin Bieber concert back to his condo, miraculously with keys in hand.Â
By this time, the good ol’ US military has decided to join in the fun, and on Terry’s closed circuit TV, they are able to get some stunning camera angles of a brave pilot’s assault on the alien mother ship. This guy has serious piloting chops, too, as he flies a B2 bomber like a fighter jet through hoards of alien defenders and heroically launches a nuke at the invading spacecraft. Amusingly, one of our heroes in the condo (and I don’t remember which, but who gives a damn about them anyway?) is watching this incredible action through a telescope. The nuke explodes and downs the ship, but it doesn’t destroy the building our heroes are in, nor does the radiation from the blast melt their skin off of their bones, nor does it fry the retinas of the guy watching the equivalent flash of 1000 suns through a high-powered TELESCOPE!!! I dunno, maybe it was a Chinese nuke or something…
Finally, they make the break for the parking garage. Now, they encounter a huge bipedal alien which stomps one of the cars into oblivion as it leaves the parking garage, but one of the occupants manages to scamper back inside. Not so fast, though, because Big Stompy can also shoot tentacles out of his hands, just like Spider Man. Back to the condo we go again. Suffice it to say, they just never make it very far. There are many more ridiculous events, but the most important thing we discover before what is perhaps the stupidest ending to a movie I’ve ever seen is that aliens that are committing mass genocide and killing every living person they encounter will for some inexplicable reason cease their murder spree upon discovering that one of their victims is a few weeks pregnant. Why? I don’t have a clue. Maybe it’s because they’ve seen Alien 3 or Enemy Mine. Probably not, though. If they had seen those two wastes of film, they’d have killed everyone much faster.
I liked three things about this movie. First, as I mentioned, the special effects looked great. Second, it was action packed and blissfully short at only 94 minutes, so while I giggled the whole way through, at least it paced itself well. Third, despite how unbelievably stupid it was, it totally took itself seriously throughout the entire sordid affair. I cannot imagine how that was even possible for everyone involved, but it actually added to how stupid the whole effort was.
Perhaps the worst aspect of this film was its lack of getting outside of the condo. We find out nothing about the surrounding world, and these fools seem to be the only ones involved in this crisis, although with the military presence, they’re clearly not. There is no information provided that would have set this story in motion and given it at least a little credibility and substance. That’s what bothers me the most. They had a chance to make a decent movie, but the writers just couldn’t get out of the damned condo. Oh, and wait until you see the ending. Holy smokes, I can’t even describe how utterly absurd the ending was…
The Bottom Line is this: this movie ripped off just about every imaginable sci-fi alien invasion movie ever made. And each time, from the carbon copy Independence Day, Matrix, and Cloverfield aliens to the oversimplified themes and dialogue, it did it WORSE than its predecessor. Poor acting, an even worse plot, and completely devoid of any originality whatsoever, this is among the worst sci-fi films ever made. It did look cool, though, and it was amusing to watch. If you feel like torturing yourself for an hour and a half, it’s worth renting. It is, after all, a parody that is unaware that it is a parody.
Everyone can use a good laugh every once in a while…
