It's the start of march and time for a new review. When people talk about alien invasion films the first movie that springs to mind for me is Independence Day, the ultimate Alien invasion flick. But has it become impossible to make a film about aliens without being compared to ID4?....lets find out...
So is possible to make an alien invasion film and NOT be compared to ID4? well the answer is no unless you are adapting a novel ala War Of The Worlds. Let's look at the facts...Independence day has the troubled boyfriend and girlfriend, so does Skyline, Independence Day has the iconic saucer bursting through the clouds, so does Skyline, Independence Day has aerial dogfights between fighter jets and alien fighters, so does Skyline, can you see the patten here, but I can't just look at what Skyline steals from ID4, it also steals from Steven Spielberg's War Of The Worlds, the opening scene features lights speeding to the ground from the sky very much like how the aliens in WOTW descend to the machines, but the main problem with Skyline is it's budget and runtime. Coming in at a runtime of 92 minutes, this is way to short for a film trying to convey a complete alien invasion, the film should have been at least 120 or 140 minutes long but then you have to figure in the budget. At a cost of $10.5 million dollars, the film feels more like a very well produced SYFY original movie. Apparently shooting only cost $500,000 and the visuals were an extra $10 million on top, but the Strauss Brothers did manage to pull off a well made although ultimately short and familiar sci-fi film.
The cast of Skyline includes a who's who of American television. First off we have Eric Balfour (24) who play's the lead, Jarrod, his girlfriend is played by Scottie Thompson (NCIS), David Zayas (Dexter) turns up as the hotel concierge, Brittany Daniel (Sweet Valley High) is a rich bitch type of Character and finally we have Scubs alum Donald 'Turk' Faison as Balfour's rich actor/director best friend. Luckily all them do quite well, sure there's a lot of 'we need to leave man, we gotta get outta the city, get to the docks and get the hell outta dodge' exchanges between the characters but they do what they can with the dialogue.
The Strause Brothers (V/FX artists) take a second stab at directing after the abysmal AVP2: Requiem, but Skyline is a much more ambitious and better film. The direction is good, not oscar worthy but good and it avoids the whole shaky cam thing in favour of fluid steady-cam shots, which is a plus as the whole hand held thing has worn out it's welcome.
The main plus points of Skyline are it's visual FX which are fantastic, but when you look at the films budget and that the FX cost $10 million, then you'd expect something special, the Alien crafts are very well designed along with giant alien creatures. Where the film really shines, VFX wise, is with the aerial Dogfights, Predator missile drones versus alien fighters and a stealth bomber equipped with a nuke, followed by what look life F-16 fighter jets taking on the aliens look incredible.
Now unfortunately Skyline came out just as the promotions for Battle: Los Angeles started and was kind of over shadowed by that so it's no wonder Skyline flopped but it's still an enjoyable slice of sci-fi invasion movie making, immensely flawed but great fun and looks spectacular.
SKYLINE
FILM: 6/10
Just streamed this, and i've got to say, loved it!
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