SKYLINE... I saw the low budget sci-fi film last Saturday, and here are a couple of notes on it:
-- The computer-generated imagery in Skyline was simply awesome. Of course, this is due to the fact the filmmakers (Colin Strause and Greg Strause...the brothers who brought you Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem) employed a bunch of no-name actors that you would see on a CW Network TV show like um, Gossip Girl to save money that was obviously devoted to the visual FX. (This no-name cast excludes David Zayas—who was last seen as a dictator being manipulated by Eric Roberts in last August’s action film The Expendables.)
-- The first 10-15 minutes of Skyline had the most pathetic attempts at character development I’ve ever seen on the big screen. Out of all the so-called characterization (some dude travels from out of state to Los Angeles to hang with rapper friend; rapper friend cheats on his girlfriend with another hoochie mama; and the girlfriend of the dude who came from out of state to hang with rapper friend is pregnant), there was only one storyline that managed to be focused on at the end of the film: One of the girls being um, 'preggers'. Of course, the fact that all but two of the characters mentioned above get killed over the course of the movie is a good reason for this. But still...Skyline's character development was atrocious.
-- It’s a wise move that the military would use Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) in the initial attack on the alien ships. Nice use of Northrop Grumman’s X-47B...a prototype UAV that, in real life, may possibly conduct its first flight next month.
-- I like how the aliens are more gruesome than Predator in that they not only rip people's heads off, but they also ingest the humans' brains and gain whatever memory is inside it.
-- Skyline is worthy of being considered an Oscar contender for Best Visual FX (that is...before the nominees are narrowed down to 3 choices). Best Art Direction? Probably not. This is because the aliens were a cross between Predator, the Cloverfield monster, the aliens from Señor Spielbergo's War of the Worlds and the Arachnids from Starship Troopers. Also, the mothership (that gets shot down by an X-47B armed with a nuclear missile) resembled the Romulan vessel Narada from the 2009 Star Trek film...while the smaller aerial craft/creatures were a rip-off of the Sentinels from The Matrix.
-- Skyline cost $10 million to make and made $13.2 million at the box office as of this journal entry. Nice to know that it won’t be considered a flop.
That is all.
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