I hereby issue a public apology to everyone who read my previous posts where I have been spreading hyperbolic messages on how excited I was about Skyline. Because Skyline, could arguably be the most awful movie of this year. It even tops M. Night Shyamalan’s efforts, and that is a big feat. Yeah, big feat for the Strausse Brothers – who took a novel concept and painted it beautifully blue but forgot to inject a story into it. So terrible is the plot that I started finding metaphoric meanings in the scenes of brain sucking. Yes, there are aliens sucking out human brains, and when that happened, all I could think was the Strausses are doing the same to me. What strikes me the most is how this pile of shit didn’t end up going straight-to-DVD like those Hallmark TV movies that are aired during daytime. How this got a big worldwide distribution is beyond me.

Now, I am not going to spare any bone on this movie and am going straight for the kill. So, watch out for the spoilers.

Skyline begins with blue lights landing on a picturesque LA skyline. That is scene 1, and I think to myself – Bravo! They went right to it. No nonsense character development. Simple, plain alien awesomeness. And then, it switches to the titles – SKYLINE. That seemed more like a TV pilot episode. And all the premature appreciation gets sucked out when the story goes back 15 hours to show us the back story of these horrible bunch of a-holes who are ‘living the LA life’. A bunch of really annoying and irritating characters who are narcissistic douchebags. Clearly, not even a single fuck was given by me about these characters, and I couldn’t care less for them to survive or die. To be honest, I wanted them to die sooner.

Mercifully, 20 minutes later, we are back to scene 1 with the descent of the blue lights. People looking at the blue light get their heads all controlled by this alien shit and ultimately get sucked in a greasy and slimey compartment. I know what you are thinking about how these aliens resemble a punani. See, another metaphor. Blue lights, punani – this is a blue film. Just really terrible acting and dialogues.

The cast is mostly unknown faces except for that Scrubs guy who is apparently cheating on his wife. Are we supposed to feel sorry? Die bitch..Die sooner. And then the main protagonists – Jarrod and Elaine are the dumbest people you’ll ever meet. Elaine is pregnant with Jarrod’s child, and they have some sort of tension going between them. They often throw up all those anxious looks and Jarrod seems to have some problem communicating. As for Elaine, she communicates in sentences such as – Look at me… No… I trust him… etc etc. And oh, the Latino man has been included for cultural diversity.

So there’s a group of individuals with equally dumb and irritating views, all different from each other – did anyone recommend Big Brother? Oh wait, Dead Set has already done that brilliantly, and that was a TV miniseries. Here, the characters are just fucktards whose only mission in life is to mindfuck me. Jarrod is the most annoying of the lot and he comes up with the dumbest of ideas. He has issues with staying indoors coz there’s no water in the building whilst the fridge is filled with beverages. Jarrod’s masterplan is to escape on a boat to a safe place. And when questioned where – he says, somewhere safe. Duh! Why didn’t anyone else come up with that before? His only reasoning is – we have to try!!! Kill this bitch now. They do get abducted like everyone else. Brave move directors!

Enough about the characters. What about the SFX, any good? Yes it is indeed. The creatures and mothership are all well done. The most impressive bit of SFX was the veins appearing when the visual contact is made (Please refer picture above). At 10 million USD, the production can be termed as very efficient. A complimentary global scale disaster shot has been included which shows shots of the Statue of Liberty overlooking the city of NY and of course London Eye standing white amongst the exploded bank of Thames.

And then, just when you thought it couldn’t get any more wrong, this movie surprises you with a twist climax. Ha! Is it any good? You decide! The protagonists get abducted as the other folks, and Elaine is spared because the aliens sense a heartbeat in her belly (we get to hear that). Now as I told earlier, human brains are being sucked out by these aliens. They use this as some sort of replacement motherboard for their monster framework. Jarrod’s brain is injected in one of them. There are no compatibility issues as such. And just in a matter of few seconds, with much appreciated help from a cheesy alien caress, Elaine recognises the alien as Jarrod. WHOA! Mindfuck completed! [ No, not like a good mindfuck , this one’s more like a mindrape ] And bam! Credits roll. We get glimpses of how Jarrod’s alien ‘Avatar’ is now fighting against all the others who dare to touch his woman. He is one possessive bastard. Possible sequel? I really hope not.

Stay miles away from this. Independence Day, a movie which is tagged with adjectives such as ‘cheesy’, ‘comic’ , ‘cliched’ etc.etc. is a far better movie, and a satisfying one at the least. As for Skyline, I just don’t get the point. Strausses, get back to doing only SFX . Please!