Skyline

Director: Colin Strause, Greg Strause
Starring: Eric Balfour, Scottie Thompson, Brittany Daniel, Crystal Reed
Time Out rating:

Let’s get one thing clear right from the off: Skyline is a terrible, terrible movie. The dialogue is abysmal (‘Vaya con dios, you son of a bitch!’), the acting is even worse, the bulk of the story takes place in one LA penthouse and the plot makes absolutely no sense. For a good 45 minutes, very little happens: our heroes, Jarrod (TV veteran Eric Balfour) and his girlfriend Elaine (Scotty Thompson) arrive in LA for the birthday bash of their successful effects-designer pal Terry (Donald Faison), but just as they’re beginning to settle into the Hollywood lifestyle, wouldn’t you know it, aliens invade. Cue lots of flashing lights, yelling (‘We gotta get out of here!’) and fairly mediocre but intermittently impressive CGI effects.

But when the final act rolls around, it’s as if the filmmakers themselves just got bored of their own movie and decided to go a little nuts. One of our heroes gets flattened by a giant marauding bug-beast, a supporting character gets his brain sucked out, the US air cavalry pitch in to the join the fight, and things start to look up. By the time one of the leading actors takes it upon himself to batter a flying squid-creature to death with a brick, it’s becoming clear that resistance is indeed futile and it’s just easier to submit to the movie’s increasingly berserk parade of b-movie thrills. An extended coda tests the patience, but for a good twenty minutes Skyline fulfils its low-rent remit. Imagine it’s 1953 and you’re watching a movie called Brain Suckers from Planet X, and you might even have a good time.

Skyline opens in Japan on June 18