Skyline

Television, Movies Games and Books Other Science Fiction
#1

Synopsis: Personally I found it to be another Cloverfield, minus the insanely annoying POV shaky-cam.

Plus: Great eye-candy, marginally good music, good cinematography whenever they actually managed to show something other than the inside of the apartment.

Minus: Like Cloverfield the characters are barely introduced before the action takes place, therefore there is NO emotional investment in any of them. This is worsened by the fact the characters then consistently do things to make you like them less and less, and or make irrational/stupid decisions.

So therefore when one of them dies you simply don’t care.

Major minus: Just like Cloverfield there is no payoff. You are dragged along this tedious journey and then it ends with no resolution. It is set up for a sequel in an obnoxious and video-gamesque fashion, but based upon the reactions I observed of the others in the theater as they left; no one gives crap!

I cannot with good conscience recommend it.

#2

That’s what I heard from other friends.

#3

Awe… I was looking forward to this movie…

#4

So was I, that is why I went opening day. Unfortunately almost everything worth seeing in the movie is in the trailer.

#5

Btw, I actually liked Cloverfield and hope to buy the Blu-ray one day. But, not at $17+. d:

#6

Per the recent podcast…Im gonna be careful and avoid being a critic, so what I’ll say is…

Well…it wasn’t Ghost Rider…so there’s that at least

#7

There’s nothing wrong with being critical, just don’t be a dick. You can say why you didn’t care for something, but you cross the line when you say someone is a lesser person for liking it.

#8

Ouch!!! That’s being careful… Poor Nick Cage :wink: and he’s shooting the sequel as we speak. Lol

#9

shivers I heard…

#10

I enjoyed it, at least the parts of it I could hear over the sound of my friend’s eyes rolling. :rolleyes:

I think if you go into it expecting a sci-fi classic of alien invasion (as my friend did), you’re going to be disappointed. If you’re expecting a SyFy Saturday night movie (inexplicably on the big screen for some reason), you may be pleasantly surprised, as I was.

The effects were great. The idea behind the lights was kind of fascinating. The characters, pretty much without exception, were unlikeable and deserving of death — definitely more like the cast of an '80s horror movie than a modern sci-fi movie. The monsters had an intriguing design, and their modus operandi struck me as very similar to [spoiler]the Cybermen in the new Doctor Who.[/spoiler]
The twist ending was certainly unexpected, at least until they practically gave it away in the last half hour. There were parts that clearly meant as homages to Independence Day, War of the Worlds, etc., but they were so obvious and hackneyed that they felt forced. Definitely the funniest but probably unintentional homage was the parallel with Die Hard: guy from New York visits a tall building in LA on the worst day possible. “Come out to the coast, we’ll get together, have a few laughs…” :smiley:

All told, with a bit of additional editing and a lot less of the truly, truly annoying humans whose imminent deaths we soon wish were even moreso, this could have been a pretty enjoyable flick. Frankly, if they had taken this and the sequel they’re working on (yes, seriously) and put them together into one movie without all the extraneous crap, it could have been great.

Oh, and one more thing: How did Brown Bear become rich? It’s never explained. I can only assume it’s because he’s a successful surgeon. :stuck_out_tongue:

#11

Interesting story behind this, apparently the company that made this was doing the fx for Battle:Los Angeles, then Sony paid 'em to basically expand their fx reel into a feature length film of the same basic premise just to cock-block the company bankrolling Battle:Los Angeles and steal their thunder.

So remember, Battle:Los Angeles is not a ‘rip off of Skyline’ when it comes out (it was delayed because they had to re-do all their fx), it’s the underdog that was ripped off.

#12

Oh, interesting. I’ve heard a lot of fan gruffing b/t the two projects, but thought it was the standard Potter/Twilight face-off.

[citation needed] however.

#13

Absolutely. Doing some digging, looks like I mixed up Sony’s role, they’re the ones doing Battle:Los Angeles and it’s Universal that bankrolled ‘Skyline’:

"Greg and Colin Strause, directors of Skyline, also own Hydralux, a visual effects house that handled all the VFX for Battle: Los Angeles. According to Sony, the Strause brothers never mentioned they were directing a competing project, to be released four months before Sony’s project. Sony is said to be “exploring their legal options.” " - http://www.fearnet.com/news/b20938_skyline_versus_battle_los_angeles_its_on.html

Another good article about the upcoming court case:
http://blog.moviefone.com/2010/08/17/battle-los-angeles-to-battle-skyline-in-court/

#14

Oh and I found that the small alien flying craft reminded me way too much of the Sentinels from the Matrix series for my tatse. (But again this is just my opinion)

#15

speaking personally I quite enjoyed ghost rider, but then again i’ve never seen any of the comic books.
I shall duly avoid this movie in the Cinema and may rent it for a druken frak party.
Phaze
on the “that said, i will never, ever be drunk enough to watch leprechaun 3 again” ID

#16

I was really looking foward to this too, but now I have yet to see a good review of it. :frowning: Guess I’ll probably wait for the DVD.

#17

I watched this movie today, and i have to say, that it was complete and utter fail imo. I’ve seen better SyFy movies of the week.

There was no rational semblance of a plot to this movie other than aliens attack to take people. At the end it shows something that might qualify as a reason, but i won’t put any spoiler about it here.

The CGI was great at times, but horrible at others (especailly anything involving us aircraft).

The characters were completely unbelievable and not in the least bit likable or even memorable. i couldn’t even tell you the main characters name, that’s how disinterested i was.

details to some of the stuff they tried to portray wasn’t even in the realm of suspension of disbelief. the big one being a nuclear explosion (not a spoiler it was in the trailers) not breaking out the windows of the building they were in… really??? what idiot thought of that one…

anyways, i just thought i’d weigh in and try to save people some money on this utter turd of a moving picture show.

#18

I think I’m going to wait to see Skyline until someone knocks the DVD down to the best 20 minutes and posts it online. The effects look awesome, but I don’t think it’s enough for me to go to the theater.

#19

I entirely agree with the flagship post of this thread. .further I would equate it to what I might have expeceted to see as the Intro video to Satrcraft III with a hybrid Zerg/Protoss invasion of earth…

#20

More like best 60 seconds… I’d add a few seconds to the trailer and thusly you would have seen the entire portion of the movie which was genuine content…