SYNOPSIS:
In
the sci-fi thriller Skyline, strange lights descend on the
city of Los Angeles, drawing people outside like moths to
a flame where an extraterrestrial force threatens to swallow
the entire human population off the face of the Earth.
MOVIE
REVIEW:
The synopsis is enough to tell you that this is yet another alien invasion movie coming out of Hollywood. Remember "War of the World", "Independence Day" and "Cloverfield"? Just to name a few memorable ones from the past years. Unfortunately, "Skyline" which is helmed by the Brothers Strause (AVP 2) will go down in history as one of the worst.
Without much narrative and fanfare, the movie opens with our two protagonists, Jarrod and his girlfriend Elaine apparently being woken up by some strange blue light shining into their bedroom. As it turns out, they belonged to the aliens who have descent into earth to abduct humans into their spaceships and sucks out the brains. And without much explanation and populated with even dumber dialogue, we are stuck with Jarrod, Elaine, Jarrod’s best friend, Terry, his girlfriend Candice and assistant Denise for the rest of the movie. Take your pick which character is going to be killed off first.
A ten million dollars budget is not a very good excuse for a flat storyline. First of all, characters. Does it have enough stuffing for us to root for Jarrod and the pregnant Elaine? Apparently no. The closest we get is the gung-ho concierge guy, Oliver. Other than him, these are mainly people which are mostly disposable anyway. Secondly, premise. Getting trapped in an apartment building with a fanciful view and automatic blinds makes an interesting location setting. The Brothers Strause however is too preoccupied with the droids and motherships lurking outside that they forgot to care about their characters. Amateurish acting aside, all these people ever do is argued about staying inside the apartment or venturing out. Note that we are pointing the fault to the writers as well.
We do appreciate loud action movies for the record and "Skyline" indeed has its moments of excitement when the survivors decide finally to venture out and escape to a nearby dock. Cars got crushed; aliens chased after them in the car park, a Gozilla-size alien pusued them from building to building. Just when you think it is going full gear into Michael Bay or Roland Emmerich mode of filmmaking, the Strauses decide to do a u-turn and plop the survivors back into the apartment for more embarrassing emo-bonding.
The Brothers Strause is definitely not cut out to be directors, as visual artistes, they are surely one of the best in the industry. Their effects company, Hyraulx has been providing excellent CG effects for other blockbusters. But back to their own directing efforts such as "AVP 2" and "Skyline", it probably deserved to be classified as simply a Grade A effects demo reel. It is just too awful to recommend it for viewing.
SPECIAL FEATURES :
There are 7 minutes worth of Seven Deleted and Extended Scenes and 3 minutes of Two Alternate Scenes. Pre-Visualization shows two sequences "Pool Escape" and "Rooftop Rescue" in their original storyboarding stage.
Feature Commentary with Directors Greg and Colin Strause is the perfect track for inspiring visual effects artists and students as the brothers dissect the various effects work in the movie. Unfortunately there is little else the brothers are interested in discussing.
Feature Commentary with Co-writer/Producer Liam O’Donnell and Co-writer Joshua Cordes are for the record indeed very enthusiastic with their work as they talk candidly about the characters and story. It’s a pity we are not.
The teaser trailer and theatrical trailer round up the extras.
AUDIO/VISUAL:
Technically speaking, the audio and visual presentation is top notch. The shakes, rattles, gunshots and explosions are amazingly captured in the DTS/Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack. The visual is also clean with well-defined solid colours all round.
MOVIE RATING:
DVD
RATING :
Review
by Linus Tee
Posted on 27 March 2011
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