Skyline is the first of a wave of alien invasion movies to be hitting our screens soon. Its directed by the Brothers Strause who have quite an impressive track record in visual effects, but in direction their previous effort, Aliens vs Predator Requiem, hardly inspires confidence.
It starts boldly enough - jumping straight into the moment the aliens arrive without any preamble. Then it winds back 15 hours, presumably to allow you to get to know the characters. This might be worthwhile if there was anything remotely likeable or engaging about any of them - stock characters played by supporting actors from TV shows (24, Scrubs, Dexter, etc...). Instead by the time the aliens show up for the first time (again!) you'll be praying that the first one they zap is the scriptwriter.
From here onwards it plays like a mash up of other, better films. You have the plot of War of the Worlds, in the style of Cloverfield with leftover special effects from The Matrix. All the while the cast run around a luxury apartment building doing all the brain-numbingly stupid things you might expect in this kind of film. To be fair, if you want to check your brain in at the door, most of the action and tension are well enough handled and on the whole it looks quite good.
Then it reaches the point where it really should finish, but instead launches into a final act of such mind-numbing daftness (not to mention yuckiness) that it almost takes your breath away. You can't help thinking that there was some poor misguided attempt to rip off District 9 in there somewhere, but it misses the mark by a long, long way.
Overall - 4.5/10 There are some really good movies around at the moment - this isn't one of them.
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