20140125: SciFi Review--Skyline

Skyline

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. American live action feature length film, 2010, rated PG13, scifi, horror.
2. IMDB: 4.4/10.0 from 64,227 audience ratings. Estimated budget, 10 million USD; aspect 2.35.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 15% on the meter; 18% liked it from 66,289 audience ratings.
4. I saw this on the SyFy channel.
5. Directed by: Colin and Greg Strause.
6. Starring: Eric Balfour as Jarrod, Scottie Thompson as Elaine, Donald Faison as Terry, Brittany Daniel as Candice, Crystal Reed as Denise, Neil Hopkins as Ray, David Zayas as Oliver.


2. Setup and Plot


1. Jarrod and Elaine visit Jarrod's friend Terry in Los Angeles.  Terry is fabulously rich, and feels a debt to Jarrod for work they did earlier in life, so he's arranged a sweet new gig for Jarrod if he wants it.  Complicating this is Elaine's very recently discovered pregnancy.  There's quite a party where the new realities are awkwardly announced.


2. All this goes down the tubes during the next night.  Aliens arrive in giant starships that hover over the city.  The emissaries from the ships try mind control experiments on our heroes with mixed success.


3. The next morning, many have already died from the onslaught, and more die trying to leave the highrise.   Soon the story narrows down to Jarrod, Elaine, Oliver, and Candice and their attempts to survive.


4. American armed forces fight back with limited success.


5. Will the survivors find the key to escape?  Will the US armed forces get the upper hand?


3. Conclusions
1. This was much more enjoyable than the loathsome Cloverfield.
2. One line summary: Humans are killed or absorbed by tremendously more powerful aliens.
3. Three stars of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 9/10 Rather good.  Some of the CGI was a tad hokey.


2. Sound: 9/10 Occasionally hard to hear, but mostly fine.


3. Acting: 6/10 Eric Balfour, Scottie Thompson, Donald Faison, and David Zayas gave reasonable performances.  Many of the others were less competent.


4. Screenplay: 6/10 Exposition of motivation is more than a bit murky for most of the film, but the end redeems this.  The lack of clear intention by the humans is explained by the mind-control abilities of the aliens.  The presence of the aliens on earth is also explained.  I would think that most viewers would not care for the fact that one needs the last five minutes to make sense out of the rest of the film.