SKYLINE Blu-Ray Review

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GRADE: 2 out of 5

One of the most hated films of 2010. I remember reading some of the reviews out there and I was a having a hard time finding one that would put this film in a good light but I’ll take the heat by going the other direction..

After watching Skyline again in Blu-Ray, I can understand why this film was pretty god-awful, I’m sure most audiences would find the slow pacing to be unbearable and the acting atrocious and I can’t argue with that, not to mention it was very poorly written, but I still stand by my decision to categorize this as one of last year’s guilty pleasures (so bad, it’s good type of movies)

Here’s what one needs to understand, The Brother Strause who directed this film, aren’t the best storytellers in town. They’re more known for their VFX expertise, with contributions on such movies as Avatar, 300, even the cover of Skyline marketing would use that as bragging rights. So as far as story and character development go, the brothers who brought us the lame Alien Vs. Predator: Requiem still got a lot to learn.
But I can appreciate their intention, despite the less than satisfactory execution and you can get what that they had in mind via the commentary feature. While other alien invasion movies might focus solely on the attack and the retaliation, Strauses were curious to see what would happen to a few civilian survivors, their interaction, they would have to survive not only their world now forever changed but they’d also have to survive each other, the suspicion, the secrets, it was kind of like watching 12 Angry Men in a sci-fi setting if that makes any sense at all. But once again, the writing was weak, the dialogue was uninspired, the characters were shallow and unlikable but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t easily amused by some of the film’s surprises. And let’s face it, the film was made with just $10 Million budget so we gotta take that into consideration too, the low quality fits its low budget. I’m not impressed by the blu-ray packet, however, because it doesn’t have much to offer but watching the pre-visualization looks like watching a very bad animated film, even the commentary guys admitted it and they laughed along too, which I guess makes the whole thing a mildly tolerable experience.

Synosis:

It was supposed to be a simple birthday weekend in Southern California. But when sunrise arrives two hours early in the form of a haunting light from an unknown source, a group of friends watch in terror as people across the city are drawn outside and swept into massive alien ships that have blotted out the Los Angeles skyline. From tankers to drones and hydra-like extraterrestrials, the aliens are inescapable and seemingly indestructible.

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