Blinded by a Light
I would have hated to be Jarrod and Elaine, they arrive in LA for an old friends birthday and end up stuck in the apartment when aliens attack, bored as they wait things out. Wait a minute, I may not have had aliens with big blue lights to deal with but I was certainly bored, in fact "Skyline" is one of the most boring sci-fi movies I have ever seen. And the reason why, well partly whilst we may have some fancy effects we are just talking another movie where aliens attack the planet but also because are small heroic group are simply not interesting leading us not to care if they get blinded and taken by big blue alien lights.
Having headed to LA for his long time friend Terry's (Donald Faison) birthday Jarrod (Eric Balfour) and Elaine (Scottie Thompson) wake up in his penthouse with Terry's wife and his assistant, who he is secretly having an affair with, to discover that the city is under attack from aliens. With blue lights blinding them and taking possession of those who stare into them no one is safe as slowly their numbers are picked off. But what do they do, wait it out in the hope that help comes before they become bored to death or try and make a run for it.
"Skyline" does have a few different angles, the ending is different and the whole idea of people becoming infected by staring into the light is different. But beyond that all we have is yet another sci-fi movie where a small group of friends are stuck in an apartment block as aliens attack. It is derivative and not in a new or unique way because all we get is stuff which has filled countless other alien attack movies.
This leads to the major issue with "Skyline" and it is boring, seriously boring, in fact sleep inducing boring. Part of the reason why is that are group of plucky survivors are not only uninteresting but not actually the sort of people you warm to. It means that not only do we not care if they live or die but also find what they do as being boring, which at one point is absolutely nothing just adds to how boring it is.
What this leads is the special effects and here is a fact about "Skyline", the filming cost $500,000 and the special effects $10,000,000. Yes that does mean that "Skyline" ends up a movie all about the visuals, the bright blue lights, the dinosaur like aliens, the lasers and the action. But do you know what when you've seen one fancy CGI blue light you've seen them all and so for all the expense the special effects do little to lift the movie. It's not so much that they are bad but the big alien spaceship is just a variation on what has been done before and lacks something fresh to make it interesting.
What this all boils down to is that "Skyline" is visually not a terrible movie but because it is just another aliens attack the world movie with nothing new it ends up boring.
