Don’t look up

Skyline
DIRECTED BY: Colin Strause, Greg Strause
STARRING: Eric Balfour, Scottie Thompson, Donald Faison, Brittany Daniel
CERT: 15A
Skyline is a cross between Cloverfield, Independence Day and War of the Worlds. Except it’s crap.

By some dark, terrible magic, the Brothers Strause (yes, that is what they call themselves) have taken not just the best but the worst elements of those movies and blended them together to concoct one of the stupidest films in history – a thick, ugly mongrel of a thing that should have been put down out of mercy.
Mercy for us.
Okay, so maybe the canine language is a tad harsh, but let me explain. I went to see Skyline on the same day I took my dog to the vet for a prolonged and stressful visit, during which he terrorised the unfortunate staff and was ultimately prescribed heavy tranquillisers for his emotional condition. He’s a retriever mixed with a brick wall and we know he suffers with his nerves, but it’s still a tad discouraging to be reminded again that your dog is a born fool.
What I’m saying is, the two events – the Skyline screening and the dog’s appointment – may have blurred together in my mind, forming one great hideous mass of trauma. So you’ll have to excuse me if my judgment is bit off – but I don’t think it is.
Artist Jarrod (Balfour) and his girlfriend Elaine (Thompson) arrive in LA for a birthday bash with wealthy film industry buddy, Terry (Faison). After much partying and eejitry, they crash at Terry’s skyscraper penthouse, but are woken by strange blue lights in the sky that have a weird hypnotic effect if you stare too long. They do funny things to the human face, too.
Turns out there’s an alien invasion in full swing and these lights belong to big ugly extra-terrestrials who fly around inhaling earthlings and permanently borrowing their brains.
Why they would want the brains of our heroes is a bit of a mystery, since they don’t have many spare cells between them.
Typical dialogue: “We’re safe as long as we stay inside. Let’s get outta here!”
It brings to mind Eddie Murphy’s thoughts on The Amityville Horror: “If I go into my new house and a big demonic voice comes booming down the stairs, ‘GET OUT!’ – do you think I’m gonna turn around and say to my family, ‘Oooh! This is nice! Let’s check it out!’”
There is some attempt to make these characters deep and interesting. Terry is cheating on his woman, for instance and she’s not one bit happy about it and Elaine is pregnant.
We know this by the subtle way she vomits in the morning and by the rapid baby heartbeat we hear when she gets an alien ultra-sound. Yes, shades of Sigourney Weaver there. Worse still, the promise of a sequel.
None of which makes you care for any of these idiots. In fact, they’re so shallow and dumb, I found myself frequently cheering on the aliens, “Eat them! Eat them quick, for the love of God!”
So, making characters interesting is clearly not what the Strause boys do best. Apparently they’re special effects experts, but you wouldn’t know from watching this – though maybe they didn’t have enough cash to do anything more than poor imitations of better movie set pieces. Like the alien tentacles with flashlights, sneaking around looking for scared humans.
Where might we have seen that before, hmm? Anyone? Anyone? Buel… Nevermind.
The acting doesn’t help, either. There are a couple of decent actors on board here, but there’s only so much you can do with a script which seems to have been written by a committee of infants high on Jolt Fanta Lightning Plus. Scottie Thomspon and Donald Faison must be particularly embarrassed.
The brothers Strause must have no shame if they can ever bring themselves to appear in public again after the final couple of scenes here – which include a floating kiss so ludicrous I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. In the end I think I did both, while simultaneously choking on a Starburst and was carried from the cinema making the kind of noises normally associated with a brain-damaged horse.
Which reminds me – in case you’re wondering, I didn’t bring the dog to the movie. But he probably would have loved it.