Skyline. Rated M (Science fiction violence and infrequent coarse language). 93 minutes. Directed by Colin Strause and Greg Strause. Written by Joshua Cordes and Liam O'Donnell.
Yes folks, it’s finally here: the worst movie of 2010 – and the only thing that kept me sitting in my seat was wanting to see just how much worse it could get. And my distinctly morbid curiousity was extremely well-rewarded: Skyline is an absolute dud.
It all starts promisingly enough, with a group of friends and business acquaintances recovering from a big night partying in a Los Angeles apartment (cue first distracting thought; ‘Oh, I must watch Cloverfield on DVD for the 100th time’).
As shafts of blue light descending from the clouds announce the arrival of a hostile alien force, our cast (including TV ‘actors’ Eric Balfour, Scottie Thompson, Brittany Daniel, Crystal Reed, David Zayas and Donald Faison) test the boundaries of ineptitude in order to survive the invasion.
They don’t stand a chance – and it’s not because (as you might have imagined) the fearsome aliens have superior firepower. No, it’s because our dreary, dopey ‘actors’ insist on running around in broad daylight, trying to drive away (cars vs aliens just never ends well), going on to the rooftop of the apartment building (yes, great idea guys), running around in the garden (very sensible) and constantly talking about trying to get to the marina where they will be able to get into a boat and sail away!
‘Why is it so terrible?’ you might well ask? The directors (who were also jointly responsible for 2007’s regrettable AVPR: Aliens vs Predator – Requiem) are primarily special effects gurus. Through their FX company – Hydraulx – they have designed and supervised the visual effects departments on a collection of the most FX-intensive films in recent memory (including Avatar, 2012, X-Men Origins: Wolverine and Jumper).
Skyline (filmed almost entirely in Greg’s apartment complex and entirely financed by the brothers themselves, presumably because no studio was interested), represents nothing more than a laughable demo reel to showcase their negligible film-making skills – independent of people who really know what they’re doing. And with the exception of one sequence where the inhabitants of LA are ‘hoovered’ up into an alien spacecraft, there is absolutely nothing else to redeem this film. Unless, of course, you want to go along and be amazed at just how cringe-makingly bad a film script (and the acting of it) can be.
This review was commissioned by the Geraldton Newspaper Group.
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