“Skyline” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skyline_(film)) is an alien invasion movie starring Eric Balfour AS Jarrod and Scottie Thompson as Elaine. The movie received almost uniformly negative reviews, but I must differ. It’s not the worst I have seen, and it is certainly better than any Jennifer Aniston movie. I like the notion of an alien invasion movie that has no exposition to explain where they come from, or what their intentions are. No one needs to explain that they come to kill and harvest as many of us as they can. “Skyline” is certainly not original- it draws its inspiration from “Independence Day”, “Cloverfield”, “V”, and the last (and worst) of the original “Alien” series. The special effects are pretty good in “Skyline” and the creatures are frightening and disgusting. I thought the film did a nice job of showing how totally confused and afraid we would become if these ugly-ass killing creatures descended upon us. We would be powerless and most sources of information would be shut down. We would be left to our own devices, which, I am afraid judging by the last election, are not all that great.
There are things I didn’t like about the movie. The first is that Balfour and Thompson have no chemistry. She is supposed to be pregnant but the way the two characters relate to each other, the procreation must have been by way of artificial insemination. The film also has Jarrod be something of a wimp. The part of the movie that I liked least was the ending. If the final ten minutes could have been eliminated and all humans were destroyed, I would have found it more satisfying than what the ending actually was. Screen writers and directors seem to have a requirement that love has some great redemptive power and can survive through all kinds of adversity, including having your brain sucked out by some horrible looking creature machine. Given the havoc that was being visited on human by the invaders, I think it would have been every person for themselves and love-be-damned. Maybe that’s the cynic in me. I also don’t understand why aliens would back off hurting its prey because she is pregnant. Does that mean after the baby is allowed to be born; the aliens will then suck out its brain? Sounds to me like conservatives who want to save the unborn at all cost, and then throw them to the wolves after they are born. Well, when I write the next installment of “Skyline”, I will correct these problems.
I did not feel that the 90 minutes spent watching “Skyline” was a total waste. It was not nearly as bad as watching the president feign anger at republican shenanigans, when he is actually one of them!
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