Based on the poor reviews I waited until Skyline came out on video to watch it, would not have seen it at all if it hadn’t been available instantly on Netflix, and even then I wasn’t expecting to get through the entire film. But I was pleasantly surprised. It isn’t nearly as bad as the reviews characterize it, the effects are first-rate, the plot more or less the best alien invasion story I’ve ever encountered on film, except maybe Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and the acting wasn’t bad. I will say that the characters weren’t particularly interesting – the actors portrayed them well enough, but something was off about them in the writing, something implausible or not true to life. But on the whole I enjoyed Skyline quite a lot.
As a big sci-fi fan I want to note a few things particular to the genre this film does really well. First, the aliens have a solid reason to invade and to do it the hard way. The alien invasion sci-fi sub-genre has a very tough time generating a reason for aliens to come to Earth and do the 1:1 invasion thing they typically do. But Skyline has it nailed: the aliens are after the humans themselves and need to capture them intact. And no, not for food. Not for slaves. But because the aliens have a sort of biotechnology that somehow can run on human brains.
Second, the alien technology is plausible as a mix of biology and machine and it is far superior to humanity’s best, as it should be. After all, no alien species is going to come to Earth and invade without being damn sure they have the power to pull it off without too much trouble. And these aliens don’t have a fatal weakness that lets the humans save the day in a last-ditch defense. No, this invasion comes off like the US army invading Iraq: not perfectly, but with only one possible outcome once it gets started.
Last, in the end all is lost but not completely lost, depending on how you look at it. Sure enough, all those people getting sucked into the big mother ships were getting killed. Or at least their brains were being ripped out and plugged into bio-machinery. I’m not sure if that qualifies as getting killed or not. The movie’s hero and his girlfriend finally get captured, but the hero has an advantage that the film hinted at here and there along the way, and that the aliens are apparently not prepared for. He was exposed to the blue mesmerizing light twice; the first time he was rescued and the second time he mysteriously had the will to resist it. Whatever trick the aliens use in that light, maybe some kind of nano- or bio-technology, it had unintended consequences for humans who were exposed but escaped. Not only did escapees acquire resistance to the light’s power, they also got very physically strong in a short time. And in the end, when the hero finally gets his own brain ripped out and plugged into a some big hulking bio-machine thing, his brain takes control of it. So, while the hero will never be the same again, and humanity is toast, that isn’t the end of it. Personally, I like that.
A lot of the reviews on Netflix expressed extreme dissatisfaction with the film’s ending. The hero, in his new hulking alien bio-machine body thing finds his girlfriend, saves her from whatever the aliens do with pregnant humans, and trots off to the next chapter which is beyond the scope of the film. The End. Probably a lot of people would have liked to see humanity finally start kicking some alien butt. I understand that, but it’s very implausible. And probably a lot of people would have preferred an ending that didn’t occur right in the middle of a very interesting turn of events. I understand that too. But nevertheless, this ending was intriguing and bold and it left me saying “Wow, wtf?” And that’s rare enough these days to be very satisfying.
3.75/5.00 Stars