L.A. is punished for its decadence in this alien invasion flick, as a young Brooklyn couple fly to the City of Angels to celebrate the birthday of a rich friend who runs a special effects company; this brief character set-up soon proves pointless as the entire city is suddenly under attack by bio-mechanical lifeforms that want to tractor-beam us into their ships and suck out our brains. Skyline suffers from weak acting, mediocre writing and awkward direction, but whoa boy the special effects are impressive — the Brothers Strause create beautifully grotesque and startling images that at least keep you watching if not necessarily interested. The filmmaking duo also deserve credit for presenting this brutal siege as a completely hopeless scenario on our part; we’re gonna get wiped out, and that is that — there’s no Will Smith or Jeff Goldblum with a laptop coming to save us. However, the gruesome epilogue set aboard one of the ships turns the movie into a completely different kind of film entirely — and it kind of rocks, actually.
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