Giger-inspired, skeletal-looking alien monsters, the eradicated landscape of Los Angeles after an alien visit. Like “Skyline” before it, this movie proves the scope of captivating visuals (both practical and CGI) that can be achieved without a hundred-million dollar budget: the slimy interiors of a cavernous spaceship, the H.R. This formation of this quasi-super team makes for some spirited, though visually redundant hand-to-claw combat in the final showdown. Even better, Mark, Audrey and others find themselves teaming up with super fighters like Iko Uwais’ Sua and Yayan Ruhian’s The Chief, especially as the aliens bring their battle to turf. While not all of these people survive the first 30 minutes of the movie and then get sucked onto the ship, being on board proves to be not the worst fate in the shoulder-shrugging logic of this simple plot thread: eventually the humans find themselves in Laos after they crash an alien spaceship, with a baby that rapidly ages (from the first movie, for all you “Skyline” super fans) that has alien-human blood that could help save the Earth. The two then team up with the likes of a subway conductor named Audrey ( Bojana Novakovic), and fellow cops like Garcia ( Jacob Vargas) and Sandra Jones ( Betty Gabriel), not to mention a blind homeless man named Sarge ( Antonio Fargas) whose narrative purpose is profoundly cheap. Frank Grillo’s Mark is a grizzled LAPD cop who has just picked up his Tucker Max-looking son Trent ( Jonny Weston) from jail when the attack happens. But this movie offers a different on-the-ground perspective, for the most part, as we follow a few different people trying to escape the towering aliens that are slingshotting human beings into their claw-hands or just ripping out their brains. The invasion is the same as in the original: large spacecrafts have sucked Los Angeles residents up into the sky using a bright blue light that hypnotizes them. But the mix of these giddy ingredients is diluted by its weak storytelling, leaving “Beyond Skyline” with only fleeting moments of genre glee to offer any special reason for it to exist. ![]() This time, he drops the “ Cloverfield” vibe of "Skyline" and tries to throw a bunch of action movie craziness into the fray: Frank Grillo (“ Captain America: Civil War”), Iko Uwais and Yayan Ruhian (the dynamic Pencak Silat duo from the “Raid” movies) and yes, a granted wish for alien wrestling. Still, a genre geek could dream.įor his directorial debut, “Skyline” producer Liam O’Donnell sidesteps the the story originally by himself and co-writer Joshua Cordes, hungry for a similar “cool” that came from the first film’s last audacious moments. The visual cliffhanger is as grandiose as it is ridiculous, whether or not the homemade sci-fi movie from VFX gurus the Strause brothers could afford it. That interest comes from its final moments: the promise of a battle royale between alien monsters, one of them steered by a human's brain. It makes the movie look stupid.2010’s “Skyline” maintains its unique position in bad movie history as the unlikely boondoggle that somehow made you want to see a sequel. All of that is to find a stupid looking egg. The trailer park could be a good small B-movie but this one insists on doubling up. The movie is split into two locations and neither is that compelling. It's a hard thing to pull off and the third act is a mess. ![]() Going to another planet is not a smaller story. Quite frankly, it may serve the franchise to pull back to do a smaller story. This is the third movie in the series and it seems to be doubling down with a healthy budget. As the sequel shows, the franchise intends on building on that construction. For an one-off movie, a lot of that can be overlooked. Its bigger world construction has issues. ![]() The original is not the worst start to a franchise but it is undoubtedly a B-movie. I am utterly surprised that this franchise seems to be going full bore. The human Pilots are reverting back to their destructive alien self and they need a thingamajig from alienaplace to fix the thingamabob. The new military tracks her down and recruits her on a dire mission to the aliens' home planet. Rose Corley feels guilty for her failures despite being ultimately victorious. It's fifteen years after the alien invasion and five years after the invasion fleet was destroyed.
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