Eye Candy #555 - "Skyline"

Skyline:  This film has been much maligned (a friend even called me after watching it to tell me it was the worst film he‘d seen in his life; he obviously hasn‘t watched all the crap I have), though I can’t honestly tell why - I’ve certainly watched worse films in my time on this planet.  Directed by the Brothers Strause (they also directed “Aliens vs. Predator-Requiem”, which I enjoyed), “Skyline” has got to be the one-millionth film about aliens invading our world, starting in sunny southern California (specifically Marina Del Rey).  Jarrod (Eric Balfour, who is pretty awful in anything he’s in) and Elaine (Scottie Thompson) are a young couple that travel to southern California to visit his friend Terry (Donald Faison, who can’t pick movie scripts for crap) at his swank condo on the marina.  Shortly after their arrival, giant balls of blue energy begin to fall all over the greater Los Angeles metro area, entrancing those that view them.  And if you got stunned by the light, you disappear, taken up by the aliens.  And shortly after that, alien space ships begin to break cloud cover, harvesting humanity hither and thither, moving around like leftover production designs from the “Matrix“ films.  Jarrod, Elaine, and the rest of the human survivors in Terry’s building try to escape but find themselves trapped by the aliens, who are harvesting brains (you would think if aliens came all this way to harvest human brains, they would start some other place than the intellectually destitute expanse of southern California).  Humanity seems defenseless, even going so far as to nuke the alien mothership to no avail.  Eventually, their party of survivors is whittled down and Jarrod and Elaine find themselves at the mercy of the aliens, leading into one of the cheesiest endings in the history of film.  This film is all about special effects, and indeed, some of them are quite good.  They aren’t buttressed by an even mildly coherent script, unfortunately, which means it’s all an exercise in style over substance. Shot for cheap (about $10 million), with a miniscule cast C-D-F list actors, It’s not godawful, it’s just not really any good.  It’s watchable, you just keep rooting for the aliens.  Of the recent invasion pics, “Battle: Los Angeles” is better, but “Monsters” trumps both of those.  Woodchuck sez, “Not very good.”