Okay, I’ll admit it. I was sucked in (absolutely pun intended) to see this movie by the trailers – reminiscent of “Cloverfield” and “Independence Day.” The special effects looked awesome, and the cast was, by in large, fairly easy on the eyes. Firmly ensconced in the center seat in the center of the theater (it was a 9 AM showing, so there weren’t a lot of people in attendance), I eagerly anticipated the beginning of a sci-fi blockbuster. What I got was a sci-fi dud.
I tried, I really tried to like this thing. The movie opens with a hungover couple (Eric Balfour from “24″ and “Haven,” and a spectacular-looking Scottie Thompson from “NCIS”) awakening to a shaking room and eerie blue light. Now, if you’re unfortunate enough to actually look at the blue light, your veins pop up, your eyes turn milky, then you’re sucked up into the sky.
No kidding.
The rest of the film has these two, along with Donald Faison (“Scrubs”), his snappish, aging trophy wife (Hey! I used to have one of those!), and a few others peeking out the windows, desperately trying to figure out what was going on.
I know how they felt.
You know a movie is in trouble when at no point during the film do you care nor identify with any of the individuals. Instead of what you got in “Independence Day,” the characters in “Skyline” were, for the most part, simple bystanders to all the action going on between the Stealth fighters and Matrix-style Sentinels.
And the ending – without TOO much of a spoiler, suffice it to say that I can confidently predict that your reaction will be pretty much the same as mine, which was … “Wait… that’s IT???”
While the special effects are pretty good (especially for a limited budget movie), “Skyline” was a major disappointment. One of the signature lines from "Independence Day" was Will Smith muttering, "Oh HELL no." The closest equivalent in "Skyline" was one of the characters saying, "This can't go on forever." At 92 minutes, it just felt like it.
