[Film] Skyline

[Greifenklaue]

Seit dem 23. ist der Aliens-Attack-Film Skyline im Kino.

-> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvVYrMgQ71o

Gestern den Trailer im Kino gesehen, macht nen guten Eindruck.

Macher sind die Brüder Strause, die mit Alien vs. Predator 2 ihr Regiedebüt gaben und bei 300 auch mit drin steckten. Und sie waren bei den visuellen effekten bei Avatar und The Day after tomorrow beteiligt.

[Christina]

Skyline soll ziemlich schlecht sein.

1. http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/blogs/latest/entry/skyline-review

Posted by Zerocks in Film Review   

Right away I have to say that I was actually looking forward to this one. The trailers were rather vague on plot details, aside from it being an alien invasion movie involving a light that sucks people up I had no idea what else to expect. I shouldn't have gotten my hopes up though.

This is another case of every major scene in the movie being shown in the trailers, while every other scene is nothing more than dull padding. Even some of the better scenes of the film are spoiled by the trailers.

So what is the story of Skyline? It is a mash up of nearly every aliens attack plot conceived, with very few original ideas thrown in. It's 50% War of the Worlds, 25% Independence Day, 15% Matrix, with the last 10% taken from any video game involving aliens. In the right hands that could make up a winning combination, but here it equals 100% boring.

What could have saved this mess would have been a cast of characters you could give a shit about, but instead they are annoying and unlikable. I cared so little about these people I can't even remember their names, (...)

A majority of the special effects range from decent to meh, but my biggest gripe is with the over all design of the aliens. I think the Strause Brothers have been playing a few to many video games, since most of their aliens feel ripped right out of Gears of War, Resistance, etc. One creature even looks so close to something out of Matrix I would almost consider it a cameo appearance.

Now we come to the ending which ranks up there as one of the worst endings I have seen in a long while. I won't spoil it for anyone still wanting to waste their time on this garbage, but I will make one comment on it. To me it looks like they ran out of money toward the end, and to make up for they decide to show the final scene through still shots during the ending credits. This movie ends in a slide show, that is all I have to say about it.

Should you waste your time and money to see this movie? Absolutely not. Nothing happens through most of the film, in fact 95% of it takes place inside one building. The characters are dull and uninteresting, leaving the audience with no one to identify with. Watch the trailer and you will see everything that is worth seeing, end of story.

2. http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/blogs/latest/entry/skyline-review-1

(...)
I actually don't enjoy beating up on independent movies much at all, it's hard enough to get a film out there without studio backing without having some internet reviewer taking a dump on all your hard work. However when a movie takes the kind of swan dive this does then I'm sorry but you can't expect the people who pay to see your movie to not have anything to say. It's not like this film is all bad, it starts off well, building suspense and mystery to dizzying heights and is it ever as creepy as hell seeing those victims being drawn into the lights and being vacuumed up by the tens of thousands into the mother ships. It's all very taught and atmospheric for a good portion of the movie and the relatively small budget (some $10-15,000,000) is spent well on some eye popping special effects.

What problems I have with this movie are NOT budget related, it's down to the writing, in other words it's the very core of the movie that's at fault. From about the half way mark thing really begin to decline as it becomes obvious that the story is faltering. The problem seems to be that when you make your bad guy so stupendously unbeatable and you pit a group of for all intents and purposes unarmed ordinary folks against them then you're painting your story into a corner, and these aliens are so bad ass that they take a full on nuclear strike and only need to reboot and repair the dinked up ship. Now as the film got dafter throughout its run I was kinda resigning myself to just letting it happen, so okay this wasn't going to be as smart a film as I'd hoped but hopefully we'll just get a good fun ride anyway. Well to some extent it delivers for the most part but it really does get sillier by the minute up until the point where after witnessing the indestructible nature of the aliens, one gets beaten to death in hand to hand combat with a breeze block (cinder block for my American friends). Then to top it off we get an ending that totally defies reason as it cuts off abruptly in what seems to be the middle of the scene. Yep it not only makes the last scene the most pointless and ridiculous, it's also incomplete...

If there's one thing you should never do in a movie it's fuck up the ending. You can have a great beginning and middle but if you leave the audience on a stinking low then that's what they walk out of the cinema with. (...)

3. http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/blogs/latest/entry/review-for-skyline
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2011 soll es aber noch einen weitere Film mit ähnlichem Thema (Aliens greifen die Menschheit an) geben, mit dem Unterschied, dass es da im Gegensatz zu Skyline einen Krieg gibt und die Menschheit sich wehrt. Ich habe aber den Titel gerade nicht im Kopf.

[Greifenklaue]

Das Budget soll nur bei 10,5 Millionen gelegen haben!

Aber ich hab jetzt auch von überwiegend schlechtend Kritiken gehört.

[KULTist]

Liegt wohl daran, das der Film entgegen dem Trailer überwiegend in einer Wohnung spielt.
Man sollte also nicht mit den falschen Erwartungen an gigantisches Popcorn-Kino heran gehen.

Ich bin auf jeden Fall gespannt.

Edit: PS: Der andere Streifen mit Invasions-Thematik dürfte Battle Los Angeles mit Michelle Rodriguez sein.

[Argamae]

Edit: PS: Der andere Streifen mit Invasions-Thematik dürfte Battle Los Angeles mit Michelle Rodriguez sein.

Oh, dann weiß ich jetzt schon, welcher der beiden Teufelsbraut definitiv mehr interessiert... 

[Greifenklaue]

So, gesehen, ohne allzuviel zu erwarten. Ich muss sagen, er war doch ganz gut.

Ganz interessant, dass einige TV-Serienstars von Scrubs, Dexter und 24 dabei waren.

Die Außerirdischen waren teils durchaus fremdartig, ein Wesen cthuluid angehaucht, sonst eher an Matrix erinnernd. Das blaue Licht war ebenfalls ein gelungener "Opener" und mal etwas neues.

Die Überlebenden waren in ihrer handlung manchmal etwas wirr, andererseits entstand so manch klasse Szene (Stichwort Porsche).

[Besserwisserboy]

Ich habe beide Filme kurze Zeit nacheinander gesehen und gebe Skyline die besseren Noten.
Battle L A wirkt irgendwie sehr zusammengestückelt. Erschien mir aus Filmen wie Black Hawk Dawn, Krieg der Welten und einigen anderen undefinierbaren anderen Filmen zusammengeklaut. Außerdem sehen die Aliens so schlecht aus, daß man nicht viel von ihnen sieht.
Seltsam, denn die Stauss-Brüder waren wohl auch bei Battle Los Angeles für einige SF-Effekte zumindest (mit-)verantwortlich.
Bei ihrem eigenen Film Skyline haben sie es aber um einiges besser gemacht.
Daß einige Viehcher sehr an Matrix erinnern stimmt zwar, aber das war sogar beim neuen Transformers-Film der Fall und stört nicht weiter.
Also wer die Wahl zwischen diesen beiden Filmen hat ist, meiner Meinung nach, mit der Skyline-DVD besser beraten