Skyline
A young couple visiting friends in LA are forced into a struggle for survival when blue lights fall from the sky and begin hoovering up people. Pretty soon alien craft are in the sky's and their troops are looking for anyone left behind.
Skyline is a RELATIVELY low budget affair made independently by special effects team the brothers strauss. The brothers previously worked on the awful Aliens vs predator and this one managed to get a similar poor reaction from critics and audience.
Watching it again I'm not entirely sure why. Its got problems. The cinematography is a little too dark. The script is clunky and the characters are difficult to relate to. However as a B picture alien invasion film its perfectly serviceable. It moves along at a brisk pace, has reasonably interesting creature design and manages to get a lot on screen at RELATIVELY low cost.
Beyond skyline
Given Skyline came out 2010 and got trashed by critics it was somewhat strange to discover a sequel was in the works. The Brothers Strauss take a sideline as producers and there's a new cast including some of the raid cast members and Frank Grillo whose building up a bit of a fanbase after being the best thing in Purge anarchy (seriously also check out netflix wheelman if you get a chance)
Its set in LA on the same day as the first Skyline. The film even reuses some effects sequences, the main one being the nuclear attack on the spacecraft. However after Grillos character gets on one of the craft in order to save his son things get a bit mad as he and other survivors end up in Cambodia and team up with the cast of the Raid to fight the aliens, building up to a sequence where they are beating the tar out of the space bastards and carving them up with machetes. Its not so much jumping the shark as dragging it to shore and making love to it. The thing is it actually works. Beyond Skyline is a genuine blast to watch. I'm pretty certain it'll appear in poundland sooner or later if you opt to wait but this ones worth checking out.
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