Skyline Review

"it's a little of a f u to the audience"

"recycle where you can create new where you have to"


The above are comments made by the directors regarding this film in the commentary and I think highlight what is behind the majority of issues present in this film. The Strauss Brothers (yes, that is what they like to credit themselves as) are clearly talented in the visual effects field as one can easily see by looking at their impressive resume in that field and that they are also the founders of Hydralux. They however have proven themselves here to be incompetent directors in near on every regard.

Hence it isn't surprising that Skyline is a film that has some impressive visual effects (although it also has some rather poor effects as well). However the rest of the film looks as if it was made for tv and cheaply at that. Performances throughout are dreadful (aside from Crystal Reed who provides an adequate performance which is impressive given how little their is to work with here), pacing is inconsistent and the script is simply dreadful.

With that being said the film does offer glimpses of something that could have made for a fun albeit still brain dead film. The idea of how the Aliens would make something beautiful (the light) and use it as a weapon could indeed be an interesting idea if further explored especially had the more interesting and mysterious Aliens forms we get glimpses of early in the film hadn't been turned into nothing more then brain munching zombies. The ending, that is what originally seems to be the ending is also surprisingly well shoot and is at least somewhat satisfying and almost gives me something positive to say about the film. That is until the extra end is thrown on, and their in lays the problem. Whilst some good ideas and a handful of well shoot scenes are nice to see, they are ultimately overwhelmed by every other scene featuring such poor film making it amazes me that they where made by the same people.

Put simply, Skyline is a film that shows faint signs of potential but such glimpses are few and far between and are overwhelmed by horrible acting, horrible dialogue, poor pacing and a dreadful and incompetent ending. Hence Skyline is a film one should go out of their way to ensure they never see.