Skyline isn't just a High School

I determined to spend this post writing about a topic that I haven't spent much time discussing as of late. If you've noticed, posts on my blog tend to take on three different topic: interpersonal behaviors, video games, and movies. If you took the time to go through my past several posts (I would advise against doing this), you would notice that I haven't recently posted my thoughts about a movie, and so that is what I intend to do here. Rarely do I come across a movie I absolutely loathe (notice, I use the word loathe fairly liberally. When I don't like something, I laugh at it, so bear that in mind). I mean, sure, I see movies available on Netflix regularly that seriously make me wonder if there's any hope from mankind (Killer Klowns from Outer Space anyone?), but it is rare that I indulge myself in watching it. Last week, however, was different. A little over a week ago I saw a preview for a movie right on my Xbox dashboard which both caught and released my attention (unfortunately, the releasing part was halfway through the movie, and by that time I was committed). For those of you who don't know what it is, which is all of you, the movie is called.......Skyline.

If you plan on watching the movie, I would seriously discourage you. If you still plan on watching it, I would stop reading this post as I plan on divulging everything about it. And I mean e..very...thin...g.

So, let's start with the cast. It stars such notable actors as Eric Balfour and Scottie Thompson. I know! Star studded cast. But, to be honest, I felt a little more validated on this by the fact that Donald Faison did grace the screen with his presence. If you don't know who that is, go watch Scrubs. Seriously, go watch it..but at the same time, Turk (I'll now refer to Donald as Turk because it just feels right), felt like a fish-out-of-water in this more serious role. Also, I felt violated when Turk dropped the F-bomb halfway through the movie. But, if there's any consolation, he got what was coming to him and got eaten. More on this later. So, in a nutshell, there was no reason to really be attracted to the movie by the cast, so this wasn't what motivated me to watch it.

Now on to the storyline. Okay, so think Independence Day....and you've basically got the gist of Skyline. A mysterious Alien ship comes and hovers over a major metropolitan skyline (get it? GET IT?!) The begin abducting people. Sounds familiar. But this way is different. In this movie, they do it with light. Yeah. I know. Light. Oh wait, it turns out that the light doesn't actually abduct people. It just puts them in some sort of hypnotic trance where their veins turn black. I don't really know what that has to do with  anything except give the make up artists more work. So they get abducted, and that's it. They're gone. This is the process that the writers chose to whittle the cast down. One of the more enjoyable abductions happened when a guy - I guess one of the main characters, although I'm not exactly sure how - decided not to go quietly, so he turns on the gas burners from the stove, and he lights a cigarette with a lighter. Man. Showed them...except the lighter didn't work. Oops. Should probably check those minor details before hatching an elaborate plan to blow up an alien outside your apartment from inside your apartment. Turk gets eaten. I guess that's a fairly important detail. When the people get abducted, they're actually consumed. See? It's so bad that I don't even care about putting that detail in its proper spot chronologically. I'll get into the ending later.

So, the story wasn't new. It wasn't hip (whatever that is). So what about the special effects? Think Independence Day. Okay, it's slightly different. Instead of sending out small alien fighter ships, they send out....oh wait, small alien fighter ships. But wait! It has a shield that deflects any type of firefight! AND the human fighters end up firing a nuke when nothing else works, but this time it WORKS. As far as effects go, nuclear explosions are awesome...except this one was from a distance, so you could only see the semblance of a mushroom cloud. Wait a second....the light I talked about earlier. Super neat right?! No, it's just a light...that had something behind it, but I couldn't really see what it was because the light obscured any background image. For all I know they could be holding up a tortilla (shout out to all my Latino friends) behind the light. Ugh.

Okay, it wasn't the effects that caught my interest. In fact, I don't even know what made me watch it, but hopefully the ending saved some sort of respect for the movie. Remember Independence Day? WAY different. In fact, our two lead characters get abducted. Yeah. Didn't see that coming, did you? But wait, that's not the end. Oh, I should probably mention now that the two leads are in love. Okay. After the abduction, we pan into the alien ship and see just a heap of human bodies slowly being harvested. But it's not their whole bodies being harvested, it's just their brains. The human brains are taken from their bodies and placed inside those of the aliens. Why? They need to know how to make a really good sandwich? I don't know. That's not the point. THE BRAINS are TRANSPLANTED! CAN YOU HEAR ME!? Surely the couple will find a way to take down the alien ship from inside. But no, the guy's brain is taken. All of the brains, when placed inside a human, turn a glowing blue, but not this guys'. His stays red. Could it be? Yes. His human passions are still in tact. The end. Seriously. I can't make this crap up.

One thing I need to mention: this whole movie is filmed at one apartment complex. Every time they try to escape (a la Turk) something happens (most often someone dies). Low budget anyone?

Okay. I sound bitter. I recognize it. And sure, I had the chance of stopping the movie at any point. But it was an instance of the Train Wreck Effect (TWE), you know, it's so bad you can't look away? Yeah, you know what I'm talking about. Don't watch this movie, people. That's all I have to say (that and everything I have hitherto said).