Skyline: Save Your Money, Rent 'Independ

Skyline: Save Your Money, Rent 'Independence Day'

When I saw the trailer for Skyline, a Sci-Fi movie about aliens invading Los Angeles and a mysterious blue light that alters people, I was intrigued by the special effects and aerial fight scenes, but knew not to expect much. The movie, however, greatly surprised me in how little I should have expected. The main characters, a typical group of disaster-movie survivors, spend almost the whole movie just sitting in their apartment watching the aliens fight the military and wreak havoc on Los Angeles. The aliens, although looking very cool, are comically unrealistic in how they act and function throughout the film; in addition, the acting and dialogue by the main characters and how they deal with the attack is extremely unrealistic.

The movie opened up, after a suspenseful glimpse into the origin of the mysterious light, with main characters Jarod and Elaine. They come to visit LA to see Jarod's friend Terry (Turk from Scrubs), his wife Candice and assistant Denise. They kick things off with a party to give the audience the impression that nothing bad can happen. It is here we learn about the lives and issues that they face, namely Terry cheating on Candice with Denise and Elaine learning that she is pregnant.

After the party, we come to the opening scene. Both Jared and Elaine have looked into the light, and a side character Ryan was taken by it. After discussing what the plan should be (if you watch the movie, be prepared to see this a lot) Jared and Terry go to the roof to inspect what happened. On the way, they encounter a squid-like alien who is designed to hunt humans. They then go to the roof where they find the alien mother ship, which is sucking up humans. From here, the plot oscillates back and forth between the characters being threatened by aliens to thinking up a plan to fighting aliens and then repeating that all over again.

Although the summary mentions a lot of running from and fighting aliens which may seem cool, it does little justice to how agonizingly slow and long the film was. The worst is when they are stuck a second time in the apartment, and Jared goes back and forth with the manager about whether or not to leave for at least a third of the movie. Even when they are running from the aliens, there is soon no suspense in what happens. Since the city is full of them, if they escape one or even kill one, there's another just behind the corner. After the first few incidents, all you can do is joke to your friend, check your texts, and wait for something to happen.

The long dialogue would not have been too bad if it were not for the one dimensional acting, which ironically would have been not too bad if there was more action. Jarod, the lead character, is sullen and worried throughout the movie; starting from the initial blue light, this is the only emotion he shows in the movie. Don't let me forget about Candice, who learned about her husband cheating after the invasion, but somehow feels that's a larger thing to focus on then aliens destroying Los Angeles and beaming up humans. It is the only thing she focuses on until his death, even refusing to ride with him when they try to escape.

Although the characters and plot offered little entertainment value, the aliens were less one-sided. I did visually enjoy the gigantic aliens roaming through LA and the alien ships going toe-to-toe with fighter jets. However, when that excitement was over, the aliens showed that they were only original when they made no sense. The squid like hunter-killer aliens were essentially living replicas of the sentinels from the Matrix movies. The alien ships and fighter jets battling, especially when they try to nuke the mother ship, was already done; and it was done better in Independence Day. Apart from that, the aliens left the audience asking several questions, the main one being besides walking around and snatching up people, why did aliens even come? This is never really addressed in the movie. Next, as the trailer shows, when you look into the blue light, your veins pop out and it changes you. Again, the movie hints that the light does fundamentally change you, but it never explores the issue. The ending of the movie, when Elaine and Jarod are taken to the ship, we learn why the humans are being snatched by the aliens. I don't want to ruin the ending for those who still want to see it, but I can guarantee it is the most absurd and confusing ending you will ever see, and in no way was worth sitting through the movie to see it.

As I've not too subtly mentioned, if you want to see action-packed fight scenes and excellent special effects, stick to the trailer. The movie itself, if it were not so slow, is a laughably bad invasion movie with intermittent action. Although I usually cut some slack from these types of movies, it is evident that many of the writers and actors simply relied way too much on the special effects and really didn't try.