Skyline

[Duggy]

Skyline can be described as Independence Day meets Cloverfield. But
only if Independence Day and Cloverfield are the two most boring films
ever made. If you found either film even mildly interesting then it's
a pretty poor description.
The basic idea of the film is a group of the most uninteresting people
ever to appear on screen are trapped in an apartment waiting to die
during an alien invasion. And audience is trapped in the cinema
waiting for them to die. As the waiting goes on, it becomes a wanting
then a yearning, then the yearning becomes the sole aim the viewer's
life that they see these people die. I hope that the voice screaming
"Please, please, let them be killed soon" was only in my head. If I
was actually yelling that in the cinema, I apologise to everyone in
the theatre with me.
At one point a character attempts to blow himself up in the hope that
he will kill himself and just one of the aliens with him. And, if I
thought that blowing myself up would have taken just one copy of the
film with me I would have considered it.
The films starts in medias res to get past that problem in these sort
of films of tedious set up of characters and the situation that
they're in and so thrusts us into the first moment of the Alien
attack. Great. Smart thinking. Except they pretty much immediately
jump back 15 hours and showed us the tedious set up of the characters
their situation. This may have been shown in real time. It certainly
felt like it went for 15 hours anyway. And it added absolutely
nothing to the film. Everything we needed to know we already knew, or
quickly learnt after this flashback. There were no extra revelation.
Usually during the set up we get know the character and how much the
stand to lose because of what is about to happen... but here I didn't
care. Will guy from Scrubs with the wonderful life end up with his
annoying bitchy wife or his constantly bewildered-looking secretary
that his sleeping with or will he lose everything or even die? I
didn't care. I really didn't. Without caring for the characters
there's just no tension, although to be fair the pedestrian directing
was also responsible for the complete lack of tension.
The only strength of the film was the special effects. They were like
the best ever cut scenes from the worse ever FPS ever.
Oh, and one final note: If alien spacecraft are sucking people into
the sky, DON'T DRIVE A OPEN TOP VEHICLE.