Skyline

There is a lot wrong with Skyline, but somehow it's not terrible. The special effects are so good that they drag the film up from the depths of awfulness to being just about OK.

But I can't just ignore the bad parts. The script and the acting are rubbish. At the beginning we see the alien invasion start... then we get taken back 15 hours to see the human characters and get to love them for what they are. Except that all the men are selfish pricks and all the women are vain harpies. Why would I care about these characters? Maybe I am supposed to hate them so that I think it is good when they die? But I don't really hate them either. They are just rubbish characters.

Fortunately the special effects from the first couple of minutes are enough to carry you through the flashback and keep you watching. After that you still get some rubbish dialog and dreadful hammy acting, but the action takes over and the characters soon get thinned out.

I think the film would have been a lot better if the characters had just been left to develop slowly through the film. We don't really need to know much about them. The less the better to be honest. There's really only 2 characters who matter at all anyway... and the things that matter about them could easily be expressed much more subtly.

One aspect of the plot that is good, is the lack of information we have about the aliens. Who are they? Why are they here? We just don't know and that is intriguing. By the end it doesn't even matter that the whole film seems to have been a huge set-up for a sequel. In fact, it's quite a cool ending.

Would I watch a sequel? Probably, if the effects were as good. But I'd like to see a bit more effort on the characters too.

PS the directors are the Brothers Strause who were also responsible for Aliens vs Predator: Requiem which was a real stinker; so this is a big improvement.