Rating : 2 stars
Battle: Los Angeles has nothing to worry about. A few months ago, Hollywood insiders were eager to dish about Sony Pictures pending legal action against F/X company Hydraulx and in-house filmmakers Greg and Colin Strause. Seems that, when hired to work on the aforementioned March 2011 release involving the arrival of some unfriendly ETs, the duo forgot to mention that they too were crafting an alien invasion flick all their own -- Skyline. While the lawyers battle it out for ultimate judicial bragging rights, one thing is certain: Battle LA can't be any worse than this limp speculative slop. In a world of weak SyFy Channel originals, this unidentified flying nonsense barely rates a rerun on Chiller.
It's a reunion of sorts for old friends Terry (Donald Faison) and Jarrod (Eric Balfour). The former is a high profile music impresario, and lives in a swanky high rise apartment. The latter is a photographer and has brought his gal pal Elaine (Scottie Thompson) along for the fun. One living large "par-tee" later and everyone is hung over and confused. To make matters worse, a weird blue light is filtering in through the windows. The beam is mesmerizing, and brainwashes those who look into it, forcing them outside and into the waiting arms of a huge extraterrestrial war machine. Indeed, Earth is being overrun by aliens. With the help of some other survivors, our heroes spend their time arguing and plotting a means of escape. Unfortunately, it looks like these spacemen mean business, and plan on leaving no human un-harvested.
If all you want is a combination of some slightly above-average special effects and the worst screenplay not credited to Akiva Goldsman, you'll adore Skyline. In the realm of wars of the worlds titles, it barely bests Plan 9 from Outer Space. As slick, computer generated eye candy, it more or less passes the test. But since the spectacle is interrupted by scene after scene of community college level acting and grade school plotting, the "wow" factor can't win us over. Most of the best bits have already been spoiled by the trailer, and there's no denying the heart-pounding presence of seeing millions of human beings sucked up into giant spaceships. But the Brothers Strauss are such bumbling directors (they did helm the horrid Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem, after all) that they don't know how to accentuate the positive.
Instead, we fall into the standard disaster movie dynamic, with interchangeable stereotypes stomping around an anarchic apocalyptic scenario, spouting dialogue that even Roland Emmerich would find cheesy (and he ended his 2012 on the line "No more Pull-ups."). We are never invested in the characters -- not even the ones whose names we remember -- and the narrative ambles away like a wino working on this third bottle of Thunderbird. By the time the human race decides to "fight back", we pray it's too late. While the flashy light show will satisfy many in the too-busy-texting-and-talking-to-care demographic, those looking for more substance (and less stupidity) in their intergalactic beatdown will definitely feel cheated.
In fact, Skyline makes the cliche-riddled guilty pleasure of Independence Day seem like the second coming of 2001. It's all hardware and no heart, a product reel for a production house and little more. While the suits at Sony have a right to worry about plagiarism, they should actually cast their angst in another direction. Skyline is so dumb, so derivative in every aspect except the visuals, that audiences may think that all future alien invasion movies will be equally lame, and avoid the genre all together. If that's the case, Battle: Los Angeles is doomed...DOOMED.
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