Eric Balfour & Scottie Thompson

In "Skyline," which offers a few stray sights of enticing PG-13 grossness but not much of a movie, space aliens drop in on Los Angeles, luring the residents with mesmerizing shafts of unholy blue light.

It's like a trip to a Kmart staffed by the ugliest beings imaginable.

Seeing "Skyline" with a late-night audience was instructive, derision-wise.

I didn't sense the right kind of laughter happening; I sensed more of a "ahhhh, kill 'em all! These people are idiots!" kind of laughter. The poseurs littering the story, several of whom work in the special effects industry but act like millionaire gangstas, deliver each new straight line on cue. "Morning already?" wonders the visiting pregnant Brooklynite played by Scottie Thompson (best thing in the film), upon first sighting of the blue light. Once too often somebody screams "Ruuuuunnnn!" or "Noooooooo!" simply because they've seen other characters in other movies do the same.

The blue light, according to directors and producers Greg and Colin Strause and screenwriters Joshua Cordes and Liam O'Donnell, is meant to be the visual equivalent of the siren songs of old, the trickery by which humans meet their doom. Each time one of the vacuous youngfolk stuck in a Marina Del Ray high-rise starts zombie-walking toward the light, you think: Isn't that James Cameron's preferred icy blue hue? Are the aliens actually working for Cameron?

The Brothers Strause, as they're billed, certainly did; they contributed to the effects work on "Avatar," among many other high-profile projects. "Skyline" exists to show off a portfolio of creatures derived from "War of the Worlds" and "Minority Report" and many others. There are the motherships, into which masses of hypnotized Angelenos are sucked. (They're brain food, literally, for the demanding tourists. Insert L.A. joke here.) There are so-called hydras and drones, smaller, tentacled beasts that give Donald "Scrubs" Faison -- who plays a callow special-effects wizard living large, until he dies larger (whoopsie, "spoiler") -- a time of it in the high-rise. Most of the film takes place in and around and atop the high-rise. Too much of it. Instead of effective claustrophobia, "Skyline" feels static, even with the digital megillahs giving Earth a dehumanizing makeover.

The movie takes an absurd leap into cross-species heroism at the end, once we see what actually goes on inside the brain-slurping motherships. "I never saw myself out here," mutters our East Coast hero, played, dully, by Eric Balfour, earlier on. There's a sly joke buried in "Skyline" relating to the gullibility of Angelenos when it comes to the latest shiny distraction, whether it's an Angelyne billboard or a blue-light-not-so-special. The Strauses could've, should've exploited that joke more ruthlessly. Their effects are pretty good, on a fairly limited budget. And that's about all you can say for "Skyline."

 

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"Skyline" Movie Trailer

 

MPAA rating: PG-13 (for sequences of intense sci-fi action and violence, some language, and brief sexual content).

Running time: 1:32.

Cast: Eric Balfour (Jarrod); Scottie Thompson (Elaine); Brittany Daniel (Candice); David Zayas (Oliver); Donald Faison (Terry).

Credits: Directed by the Brothers Strause; written by Joshua Cordes and Liam O'Donnell; produced by Kristian James Andresen and Liam O'Donnell and the Brothers Strause. A Universal Pictures release.

 

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