Skyline

Starring: Eric Balfour, Scottie Thompson, Brittany Daniel, Crystal Reed, Neil Hopkins, David Zayas, Donald Faison
Directed by: Colin Strause, Greg Strause
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Action, Science Fiction, Thriller
2010

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: Two friends (Eric Balfour, Donald Faison), and their girlfriends (Scottie Thompson, Brittany Daniel) wake up to find that aliens have invaded Los Angeles. They fight to survive the onslaught.

Review:

Tim: I'm not sure why I felt excited about seeing Skyline. I almost went to see it in theaters, but ended up not seeing it. I'm glad I waited for DVD. I think I was just wooed initially by a few factors. First, this is an alien invasion movies, and I love movies that address that topic. I also thought the special effects looked pretty outstanding, and the film featured Donald Faison, whom I like a great deal. I thought maybe these factors could overcome the obvious limitations of The Brothers Strause. I honestly don't understand why people think visual effects specialists make good directors. They don't. The Strauses' first directorial effort was the atrocious AVP- Aliens v. Predator: Requiem, and this film, although better, still sucks. They should stick to the visuals, not directing.

When you watch Skyline, it's obvious that the Brothers Strause are very impressive with the visual effects. With a small budget, they created some beautifully rendered alien crafts and creatures. They should be applauded for that achievement. However, cool visuals are such a small, small part of what makes a movie great. This film suffers from poor direction, weak acting, an absurd plot, and more. This is a flawed, stupid film that tried to pull one past audiences with shiny, impressive visuals. It's not going to work.

I was amazed at how stupid and pointless all the characters seemed. I honestly didn't care about a single individual in this entire movie. The actors didn't do much, but they were hampered by an awful script. Eric Balfour is one of the most bland, boring, stupid leading men I've seen. I didn't care about him for a single second the entire film. As I mentioned, I'm a huge fan of Donald Faison, but I just couldn't enjoy him here. His character was weak and unenjoyable. I'm glad he is getting movie roles, but this was a bad one. I also like David Zayas, but I could only laugh at how silly he appeared on screen. I love how he started yelling and bossing people around out of nowhere and overreacting for no apparent reason. It was unintentionally comical, and one of the worst parts of the film.

As a massive alien invasion movie fan, it speaks volumes that this film didn't do much at all to appease me. I'm not overly critical- if a movie tries hard and in good faith gives me an entertaining ride, I'm more than glad to support it. However, I do have standards, and this movie failed to reach any of them. The main people at fault here are (obviously) the writers of the awful script, and secondly, of the Brothers Strause for directing an inferior, stupid movie. Hollywood doesn't need bad alien invasion movies. I want more of these, not less, and crap films like Skyline hurt the genre. Maybe I'm being overly critical of the Strauses, but I just don't understand why everyone thinks they can be a director. Directing is hard. The Strauses should go back to visual effects (clearly they're skilled here), and leave the directing to people who know how to do it. After two directorial efforts, both of which are bad, I hope these guys give it up. It's a shame, because I wanted so badly to like Skyline- they just made it impossible to do so.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating- 5.5



If You Enjoyed This Movie, We Recommend: AVP- Aliens v. Predator: Requiem