I WISH the sky was the limit - SKYLINE

1 out of 5 popcorn kernels

See Trailer Here

What Was That...?

Usually those words follow a car crash, or a strange loud noise, or a discolored skin growth, or an insect bite, or some odd taste of a food you've accidentally swallowed.

It was also my reaction the next day after seeing this movie. Why did it take a whole day? Because while watching Skyline, my eyes were thrilled and my brain was kept busy (kinda like what happens to the actors), but like a Jerry Springer episode, nothing was really going on...and like the ending of that same show, there was an ending (in Jerry's case a monologue) that totally bewildered me - even as the credits were rolling. So as I began to process the movie beyond the special effects and the One Hill Street looking

cast, I realized I had actually watched the making of a bad accident.

Skyline is about a group of friends the day after a party, who wake up in the middle of the night by bright lights outside their windows. One of them gets up to investigate,
only to be dragged into the abyss by the source of the lights as he stares into it; and undergoes a transformation that coaxes him into the light in question. There is a scream from an actress who notices this, and as another actor goes to investigate this mystery, he too looks into the lights and is almost drawn into it, but is forced back away from the light...and then we flashback.

I Guess The Party's Over

Who are these actors...does it really matter? The way they are presented to us makes them come off as really pretentious and self-centered.So who cares what happens to them? We have Jarrod (Eric Balfour) who is our hero - and was much better in Six Feet Under as Claire's boyfriend, is flying into Los Angeles with his girlfriend Elaine (Scottie Thompson), to visit an old friend who he had dreams of having a rap group with - only thing is his arrogant friend Terry (Donald Faison, much better on Scrubs), who has actually made it big time as a rapper and is married to a spoiled blonde named Candice (Brittany Daniel, much better on The Game); and Terry's horny mistress Denise (Crystal Reed). Then there is the apartment lobby guard Oliver (David Zayas) - who has the keys to every locked stairwell, so when our group tries to venture outside, only to encounter the aliens, he is the one who leads them up the stairwells back to their apartments safely.

And the Aliens...who start the movie on a positive note of mystery, with these fiery balls raining from the sky around Los Angeles. And the light that wakes everyone up is cool too. And then morning comes, and they can see that the balls of light were small space ships, but upon closer inspection with a telescope, we see that those space ships are hoovering above Los Angeles and sucking up humans like lint through a vacuum. They look like a cross between a dog and horse when they finally scavenger the streets for more humans. Our group peers out the window at all of this, and they are scared, and then they speak, and then the movie goes all gooey and gloppy, and confusing and weird, and the plot shoots off in all directions, and the movie starts arranging idiot ways for this group to leave the building, only to be chased back into it, only to plot to leave it again, only to be chased some more, only to finally have some become alien food (or brain food - cause the aliens want our brains), only to have the hero become even more of a hero...or because of the light, something changes in him, or he changes himself, or he finds himself which is not himself...or OH MY GOODNESS! I give up!

And then there is an ending that may or may not be the ending, because while the credits are running - we have some sort of Fore-Story projecting us into some events that may or may not be the future and were found on the cutting room floor. Don't worry, I have given nothing away. But that ending had me scratching my head and wondering if the directors (Greg and Colin Strause) forgot about linear plotting structure, and really wanted to make 3 or 4 different movies (and maybe really did) and forgot how to cut & paste properly.

Nothing was really solved, and yet I was glad the movie was over - but it took me a day to realize why I had watched the whole thing in the first place. I had no answer...

...and that is when I looked SKYWARD and asked...What Was That?