I know why everyone's so pissed at what happened with
Skyline: it isn't because the film's execution didn't match up to its initial premise, or that every last trickle of creative insight seems to have gone into the special effects to the detriment of everything else; it isn't even the conspirators' theory that the film was made in order to prove that any production without the help of a big studio inevitably ends in a poor final product. No. The reason everyone is so angry, and so disgusted with the final film is because the trailer sucker punched us all into thinking it would be great. Well, ok, not great, but an enjoyable man vs aliens romp with impressive looking aliens and stunning special effects. Thing is, you see, we don't like being lied to. So now that the dust has settled a little- although to me it feels like Skyline was only in cinemas about three days ago- and
the blu-ray has now been released, it's time to see whether those initial critical responses were right, or whether everyone was just letting their judgement be clouded by their bad mood, and distributed a critical mauling a little too easily.
This is what happens when the Big Brother generation- Generation Meh if you like- start making their own films. Rather than making a good old fashioned alien direct conflict film,
The Brothers Strause have offered a conceit which determines that the heroes and heroines cannot look at their extra-terrestrial foes for fear of being vacuumed out of the window of their condo stronghold, and thus can never confront them. So they basically just watch them on TV. And we watch them, watching the conflict on TV. Fucking reality TV- you have a lot to answer for. So, we have a passive action film: surely, having well-rounded, sympathetic characters might turn that nasty little idea into an okay overall premise? Well, we'll never bloody well know now will we, because the collection of vapid, unlikeable and ultimately inconsequential characters that we are treated to could never carry such a weight of expectation. The script is to blame a lot more than the acting performances, since there isn't a great deal an actor can do when endlessly fed the kind of cliched lines that Steven Seagal might wince at having to let past his lips, and generally being treated with so much disdain that it at times feels like we should be cheering their annihilation.
I like to think that Special Effects teams are like the jocks at school- they have their job, and a certain set of skills that makes them invaluable in their position, but put a jock in say Drama Group or Glee Club (forget what Matthew Morrison is spuriously trying to prove), and they become no more than a dribbling mess, out of their depth, and headless, unless it was a production heavily reliant on sporting themes. The same would usually happen if you were to give an SFX team the reigns to a film- they just get all excitable and forget that really, they aren't qualified at all to be doing such a heady job. That seems to have happened here, with The Brothers Strause failing on every account apart from in terms of the Special Effects, and then just sort of smushing every thing together in a mess and hoping for the best. But you still do have to give the Effects Jocks their dues occasionally- most of the alien scenes are impressive looking, and the aliens themselves are designed better than 80% of invasion creatures and with considerably more effect. The Strause boys obviously know how to have fun blowing shit up, that's for damn sure, and that they can do it with style bodes well for them for future special effects projects. It's just a shame that it is combined with such an obvious lack of brains or directorial ability that you would think they were actually trying to fail on purpose, and the key to even the most terrible of guilty pleasure action films requires a certain technique about it. Those films are just terrible enough to enjoy, but Skyline achieves the near-impossible: it is genuinely so terrible that it has no entertainment value.
Awful film, just awful, and I'm afraid that no amount of impressive special effects could ever distract from the fact. The Brothers Strause may claim that this was the first in a series of films, and indeed that awful ending does suggest as much, but money talks, and criticism isn't as inconsequential as it once was to the decision behind extending franchises, so I would't exactly count on it fellas.
Incidentally, I initially gave this film a much better review on the radio show I appear on last weekend. I must have been really quite high.
Quality
Not great at all. There are a lot of soft shots, way too many in fact, especially in interior shots, and there are times when the level of detail in certain scenes is woefully low. There is an argument that would suggest that this is intentional, and on-manifesto with the gritty survivalist tone but the inconsistencies between the best and worst scenes is so noticeable that this simply cannot be the case. Ironically though, the only thing could really find to minimal praise in the review of the film itself is undone by a sloppy high-definition transfer that robs it of its impact. While there are moments when the special effects look great, the blu-ray transfer seems to have arrived with an agenda to undo all of that good work and replace good-looking with head-ache-inspiring in the adjective buzzword pile. Sadly, the small budget and an HD transfer just don't match, and it becomes pretty obvious where things have been added in digitally. The audio quality is arguably the best thing about the entire project- bombastic and impressive during action sequences, and is definitely suited to turning the volume on the TV way, way up. Having said that, the quieter sequences tend to be markedly more muffled, and unintelligible in a few spots, but that's only on the odd occasion.
Extras
The disc offers the usual suspects, and without much panache. The deleted scenes were obviously justifiably cut, and their inclusion here seems unnecessary, because they don't offer any insight into any sort of laboured, discriminatory editing process. Likewise the alternate scenes offer very little. The commentaries are probably the highlights, with the Strause Brothers' effort has some interesting technical insight, though the "high-point" is definitely their downright arrogance when the issue of the film's critical reception arises. The second commentary, with the writing team of Cordes and O'Donnell, is far more humorous, but very, very sarcastic, which coupled with the writers' obvious affection for the film lends to an odd, slightly off-kilter tone. Everything else, including the Trailers, quite innovatively, comes with an optional commentary, but if you've got through the two commentaries discussed above, the simple fact is that you're probably already going to be very sick of the opinions of the production team. I know I was. Audio Commentary #1 with The Brothers Strause. Audio Commentary #2 with co-writers Joshua Cordes and Liam O'Donnell Deleted and Extended Scenes (6 mins) 7 deleted scenes with optional commentary from the Strauses and writers Cordes and O'Donnell. Alternate Scenes (2 mins) Two alternate scenes are included here "Candice Sorry" and "Oliver's Backstory". Pre-Visualization (10 mins)
Skyline is available to buy on Blu-ray and DVD now.