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Skyline

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Written by Jonathan Jacobs

Jarrod (Eric Balfour) and his girlfriend Elaine (Scottie Thompson) travel to Los Angeles to visit his best friend and business associate, Terry (Donald Faison), and his dish-of-the-month, Candice (Brittany Daniel). After the usual wining and dining and sixty (you get the picture)…Jarrod and Elaine celebrate Terry’s birthday and his recent upswing in the filmmaking business. Terry offers Jarrod the opportunity to relocate to L.A. to work as his special effects guru on his upcoming films. Feelings enthusiastic about this opportunity, Jarrod is ready to jump in…until Elaine reveals she is pregnant. This complicates issues and may well have caused Jarrod to reconsider moving. That is, if aliens from outer space (where they are from and what they want is never touched on) interrupt their melodrama in favor of planet-wide annihilation. Man, I just love a good extinction at the movies!

Billions of humans are swept away by alien monsters with impenetrable outer hulls. This process starts when the alien rovers/marauders lure their victims in with cerulean L.E.D. lights that also brainwash and possess victims. Step two is suctioning almost every person on the planet into their capacious stomachs for eventual digestion? I can eat a large pepperoni pizza under the right circumstances, but 6.5 billion people is a stretch (no pun intended). Step three is warding off planetary defenses. This is done by resisting nuclear blasts, by swatting away unmanned drones like flies, and by reconstructing their own ships/bodies despite being on fire and radioactive. Somebody shut that damn Geiger counter off, or we’re going to have a problem!

Meanwhile, despite 99% of the Earth’s population being wiped out, our lucky gang of survivors has some (you guessed it) surviving to do. Jarrod is already infected with alien serum (District 9 rip-off) and is slowly changing into an alien, though the effects are not resolute. Meanwhile, Terry is full of bravado, since he had relations with two of the six people left alive (this is the Forest Gump way of saying they made whoopee). Candice is angry about being cheated on; Denise (Crystal Reed) is the surprisingly helpful and efficient slut; Elaine is concerned, but supportive of her cowardly boyfriend; and finally, the property manager, Oliver (David Zayas), formulates/ad-libs their escape plans. While everyone’s individual dramas play out, the only thing separating the group from their interstellar attackers are blinds. These are no ordinary blinds ladies and gentlemen, they are darkening blinds from Home Depot, and they are on a timer.

The highlights of this film include Elaine and Jarrod kissing while hurtling to their deaths into a fiery alien carcass, Terry’s philandering, Candice’s obvious alcohol problem, and Oliver’s death-defying attitude.   Ladies and gentlemen, when my favorite character in a film is the property manager, we have serious problems! The lowlights include the lack of an explanation for the aliens’ invasion, the acting, the extra terrestrials’ lack of an identity, the absence of a functional plan to eradicate them from the planet, the acting, the pathetically obvious CGI effects, the acting, the fact that the aliens are really creatures from Matrix Revolutions (except that they do not believe in Newton’s laws of physics and gravity), the acting, and the ending that is so contrived it is perfect for vacuous morons who prefer not to think (for example, see President Barak Hussein Obama’s supporters).

Skyline is a miserable disgrace and a complete waste of time…if you watch it after reading my review, shame on you! I do not want to pique your curiosity; I want to dispel it completely! Every aspect of this film is stupid and senseless. The only redeeming quality is when Donald Faison from “Scrubs” is smashed…well, almost smashed. I wonder if the aliens even have a conscience about the carbon footprint they are leaving? What are they known as…the Cloverfielders? I am pretty sure Skyline is nothing more than one of J.D.’s (Zach Braff) hallucinations playing itself out (see floating head doctor for example). Shame on you, The Straus Brothers, for blatantly borrowing, if not stealing, ideas and characters from films that are eons out of your league. This film should be billed as a spoof, but as usual, the joke is on us.