so many movies, TOO MANY MOVIES

Ok, so its that time of year. Good ole' awards season is in fully swing so I've basically spent the past couple of weeks trying to track down some of the hot listed films I either missed or have been waiting to come to my area. And as with every awards season I know I'm going to miss stuff. So sadly I won't be seeing Danny Boyle's "127 Hours" before the year is out and a few others I was interested in. But still I've seen quite a few things and have a couple more to go. So I'm going to do fairly cut and dry reviews for this lot. Then sometime next week I'll finish up with a review for the Coen brothers "True Grit". Directly after that I'll have my Top 20 films of the year list posted. So here we go.

"The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader"
Overall probably the most enjoyable of the series to watch, but nothing to write home about. It's the first one to not attempt to be like "The Lord of the Rings" or "Harry Potter" and manages some good fight scenes and one highly impressive monster battle at the end. Still there are a good number of dull dips around the middle of the film and also some pretty damn corny ass segments that don't clear up fast enough to not be an issue. All this said I'm not completely knocking it, but I'm far from loving it.

"Best Worst Movie"
If you've never seen "Troll 2" then go rent that and this documentary and make it a double feature. "Best Worst Movie" takes a look at the hardcore fan basis that's amassed for the terrible, but great early 90's horror flick "Troll 2". In it you see almost all of the original cast and crew(which is great at times, but also quite sad given the lives of some of them). Mainly though you follow charismatic and charming George Hardy who played the father in the movie. Hardy is a nice guy through and through, but having him as your tour guide through the wide world of "Troll 2" can be as exhausting as watching the movie a ton of times within a few days. Still it's a fun and funny documentary that it's very entertaining and adds to the lore of the "Troll 2" universe.

"Monsters"
I don't expect ALOT of people to like "Monsters", but I really dug it. Made for a total of $15,000 dollars, it's a qusi-indie drama romance that takes place in an infected section of Mexico. Said infected zone is inhabited by giant alien octopi that are none too friendly. What makes me fall for the movie is really just the way in which creator Gareth Edwards goes the extra mile dramatically to tell a big story despite his budget. Sure some of the effects aren't perfect, but they also aren't that bad. In fact some are pretty fucking great. But really it's about these two people who are trying to get back to the lives they live and question if they want.

"The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest"
An entertaining and interesting end to the trilogy. After being bored and letdown with "The Girl Who Played With Fire", I was pleased to find the finale pretty damn fun to watch. It's far less of a thriller than either of the prior films and is instead closer to a courtroom procedural.

"Black Swan"
Among the tip top best films of the year is Darren Aronofsky's beautiful, twisty and sad "Black Swan". Natalie Portman delivers probably her best and most fearless performance as Nina, the dancer looking for perfection. And like most quests in Aronofsky films... they don't go too well. But the road there is paved with little nuances from the horror genre and then some generally creative integrations of the physical and the mental tension. Simply a GREAT picture and one not to miss.

"The Fighter"
Another great film of the year and also connected with Aronofsky (this time as executive producer). "The Fighter" is simply put a goddamn great movie to watch. It has all the entertaining elements that make dramas good, sporting films good and just general stories good. Christian Bale and Melissa Leo deliver great performances that focus on the showy (which is great). But I do feel like Wahlberg's Micky Ward is a great performance on the opposite end of the spectrum as a strong, but subtle piece of acting. Another key note is director David O. Russell ('Three Kings' and 'I [HEART] Huckabees') reminding us just how good a filmmaker he is. Russell doesn't really change up styles, he just implements some new ones like filming the boxing matching in HBO format. What makes those even more impressive is just how strong the boxing scenes are. While there aren't a ton, they are highly realistic and well done. This is easily his best film since "Three Kings".

"Tron Legacy"
On the one hand I feel like they got the "spirit" of the original with this sequel. Never did I feel that the 1982 "Tron" had a strong storyline or for that matter one that made a lot of sense. But it's designs and some of it's undertones made me love the film. "Tron Legacy" is a well made, fun and very solid sci-fi adventure picture. It's not filled with needless action turning into a meathead movie, but it does lack the subtle "depth" I was hoping for. So yeah I'm a bit disappointed. I DID however like almost all the characters (sadly Michael Sheen is one I didn't care for as he was pretty useless) and I liked seeing the updated design work that really did pay homage to the original instead of trying to just make suped up versions of it. Had "Tron Legacy" (or rather it's writers) aimed at making a headier sci-fi movie I'd be giving this all types of love, but it works for what it is. Daft Punk's score DOES make the film is many ways too. I'm not sure anyone else could have scored this with the same intensity and intelligence. Overall quite fun.

The Warrior's Way review

Walking into movie without much to go upon except a couple of trailers and posters is probably what I love doing the most. Let's face it movies today get spoiled months in advance due to the online world, but once in a while there's a film falls through the cracks in certain respects. One that not enough people have any interest in to comment on the happenings surrounding it. Sometimes it's a movie like "Skyline" in which no one had much to run on outside of the brothers Strause comments about the studio system. Then opening weekend we discovered the movie was absolute shit. And then there is "The Warrior's Way". The trailers almost scream movie made for the meme generation. Slack-jawed, morons without a shred of intelligence or good taste that love to make poor jokes about zombies, ninjas or whatever else is "popular" at the given second. Well it still might kind of be that movie... but it's an absurd amount of fun.

Viewing "The Warrior's Way" can only be compared to the first time I watched something like "Dead Alive" or "Darkman". For the first ten to twenty minutes I questioned what the hell this was and then something happens that makes me fall for it. With "Dead Alive" it zombie killing, kung-fu fighting priest. In "Darkman" it was the lab assault that creates him. In this it's Danny goddamn Huston. Huston plays Colonel, a scar-faced bastard who loves raw steak, fucking with the townsfolk and rape. He loves himself some rape. It's a character role for an impressive actor where seriousness and good taste get to fly out the window and he's let go to do whatever he wants. But he's not alone. As soon as Kate Bosworth opens her mouth and starts rattling off in an over the top, but likely southern jaw it's great. You start to love her goofiness in all fashions. And Geoffrey Rush as a drunken rifleman is as exciting and humorous to say the least. Really the moment in which our hero played by Dong-gun Jang reaches the deconstructed western town is when the film really seems to come alive.

The plot is something of a mixture of generalized eastern and western stories. On one end is the wayward swordsmen who grew a heart and turned his back on his master. On the other is quirky western towns people that gets roughed up by a band of marauders as they just try and skate by in life. Apparently mixing these two elements and having them exist in a cheapened "300" like universe works. And I use the "300" thing lightly. Despite the green screen environment several of the gorgeous horizons don't appear to be CGI, but simply real skies super imposed onto the screen. Also the cheap effects work wonders for the feel of the movie. It starts to feel like something made with the same love and sense of experimentation as old school Jackson or Raimi. Okay that's a big thing to say, but see it and then compare it with some of their older films and see if you can't find the same heart.

I mention the off feeling I had at the beginning of the movie, but by the end it all makes sense. The opening seems like it's aiming to be something less than it could be. It feels like a video game and the violence is too fast and shows very little for an R-rated film. By the end I understood why. It's not a gore-hound film, but it is violent. I realized that had they shown since the opening the style in which they really fight it would have grown stale and dull by the big climax. They employ an interesting type of slow motion fighting that doesn't feel like the Snyder-slo mo we've been seeing as of late. It's faster and more fluid. The action set pieces are also quite fun to watch and cleverly put together. Again they are cheap, but that cheapness WORKS. You don't need sixty million dollars to make a fun and original genre movie and "The Warrior's Way" proves that.

Faster review

Before I jump into what "Faster" does have let me tell what it doesn't. Often times scenes shown on the trailers aren't in the final product. Sometimes it's simply because the scene was a nice trailer shot and nothing more or because in the grand scheme it doesn't work. 98% of these scenes are random shots or diologue. However "Faster" is probably the second film (the first being Michael Mann's "Miami Vice") that actually cuts a key piece of action. The scene is nearing the end of the trailer in which you see Driver (Dwayne Johnson) and Killer (Oliver Jackson-Cohen) play chicken in the desert and collide; sending Driver's car through the air and landing top down. Spoiler as this is that scene has been cut and basically the finale is a big "The End" on screen. Let's just say that spoiled a GREAT deal of cheesy, lead-headed fun. But thanks to the internet I have an idea of why that is the ending.

Now for what we DO get from "Faster". This is the return of Dwayne Johnson: action star. After exiting the WWF he did a number of action pictures some lame ('The Mummy Returns', 'The Scorpion King', 'Walking Tall', 'Doom') and some pretty good (like 'The Rundown' and... well he had 'The Rundown'). Anyways despite some of the movies sucking he was quite impressive. Easily he looked like someone who could and was interested in taking the reigns as a classic action heroes and maybe starting a collection of explosive work himself. Then he went all Brendan Fraser and Jackie Chan on all are asses and found out he could make boat loads of cash doing half-assed kids films. I find it absurd that people would pay more to see Chan in something like "The Spy Next Door" as opposed to "Thunderbolt". "Faster" reminds us that Johnson still can be the badass and look like a badass the same way the old boys did it. Sadly the movie doesn't match his skills.

Not that it doesn't try. Billy Bob Thornton plays Cop, in all his nasty, scruffy glory. His entrance brought a smile to my face as he shoots up heroin in an ally while Kenny Rogers and the First Edition flairs up in the background. Carla Gugino as a lady cop is more that always excepted. And "Notorious" director George Tillman Jr. displays that he could very well have a future in the action genre. Which is nice considering how many of late have tried it and failed (lookin' at you Haggis). The violence is... workable, the lighting and angles are moody and interesting; and mixed with Clint Mansell's music, quite cool. BUT within this very direct story of revenge there lay three back stories. One is of course of Driver. The second and most interesting is that of the Cop. And finally the one that is completely and utterly boring and pointless... The Killer. He is eye candy for the female viewers which is fine, except that he's dull. He's a computer genius that wants the ultimate rush so he got into contract killing. He has a beautiful girlfriend (Maggie Grace) and some slight mental issues. But neither him nor his backstory are interesting. In fact his character has pretty much NO POINT AT ALL. I think he was placed within this story simply to give Driver something else to deal with between hits instead of just having him deal with people along the way. You know like "Vanishing Point", a film they referenced during the making.

Okay... I'm sounding harsher than I want. "Faster" isn't utter shit. It's dumb, but never boring. It is at heart a throwback film that given the right set of circumstances COULD work as a true, blue grindhouse picture. Not in the tongue-in-cheek way like "Machete", but in the real way. The way where ridiculous shit happens and everyone is pretty dead pan serious about it. That's not a bad thing either. Most genre pictures do this, but aren't willing to embrace it as much as this did. But removing extra character pieces and the original ending do tend to fuck up the mojo. And now back to my original point. Why it ends the way it does.

At first I thought that CBS Films wanted to pick up where FOX left off and start snipping the gibbets off of otherwise decent pictures. Anyone who knows anything about revenge movies... more so road revenge movies knows how it must play out. Anyone watching "Faster" who is privy to this knows as well. It is what makes it work in the end. It's why "Vanishing Point" isn't just a fun movie, but goddamn great picture. No matter how the hero wants to change... in the end he must face the music too. According to sources Tillman and Johnson would like to make this a series. CBS Films announced a sequel due out in spring 2012. Despite my feelings about this film however... I can't deny that a sequel couldn't hurt. Even with the 'they all die' ending to the film wouldn't have been perfect. It's flawed, but it's fun. It keeps you fairly entertained and even more so in the events leading up to the ending. It's predictable, but then again it was never that complex so why shouldn't be? If they are actually serious about a franchise or what have you then do it. These aren't 100 million dollar movies and if you work out these characters and a fully formed story then you might have something totally fun to watch. It's rare that I think that a sequel to a film I disliked is a good idea, but for "Faster"... well... maybe it can work.

Fair Game review

You know I had almost written off director Doug Liman a while ago. After the lackluster "Mr. & Mrs. Smith" and the God awful "Jumper" I had pretty much figured that he'd peaked and now enjoyed simply getting nice pay checks for crap work. I was a bit surprised given his prior works "Swingers", "Go" and of course "The Bourne Identity", but between those films and some poorly produced tv shows that was my thoughts on him. Happily I was wrong and Liman has returned with not just a good film, but his best film and one of the most intelligent and entertaining CIA dramas in years.

"Fair Game" is about Valerie Plame, who in the early 2000's following the invasion of Iraq had her named leaked in the newspaper as an active CIA field agent. As you can imagine this isn't something light. Only her husband Joe Wilson (played by Sean Penn) and her parents knew about her CIA life which would then make normal life a lot less normal. Add to that her name and her husband's name being dragged through the mud on every news show around just so that Washington and the White House could destroy their public creditability. But the question is why. Why was her name dropped and why did they want so badly to make sure we the people wouldn't listen or wouldn't care about her story? The answer is... complex, but not hard to follow.

Simply put it boils down to the news that people want to hear. Behind the scenes motives and theories are never delved into much, but you can tell that it's a lingering thought within the screenplay. Adapted from two books written by Plame and Wilson, "Fair Game" and its impressive screenplay by the Butterworth brothers plays up the best parts of CIA stories, political films and just flat out good drama. Doug Liman seems to be playing with a style vastly different from his latter work and a bit more in tune with "Swingers", but stronger. His independent edge is evident however he has a fairly nice budget here so he can get great wide shots showing bits of destruction during the bombing raids and also shoot the film globally. However 98% of the film is very much focused on Valerie and Joe. As a couple and a working family they have to suffer through something extremely difficult in which they have conflicting opinions on. Joe wants to fight Washington while Valerie is simply worried about their future, the state of a few active operations she had going and just dealing with the overbearing negative press directed at her.

Watts and Penn simply go great together. They both pull off the sort of performances I love to see in which the actors effortlessly kill in dramatic moments while making us like and believe them in more somber settings. Hell there are times in "Fair Game" where it feels like the rage filled work of early Oliver Stone. Something that doesn't want you to simply be content with what the suits in Washington tell you is right, but wants you to ask questions. In many ways this is one of the more patriotic movies I've watched in a long time and equally brings pride and disgust. Many people have different opinions on why we went to war. At this point I'm not totally sure the answer matters as much as it did in 04', 05' or 06', but the amount of uncertainty should raise some red flags to Americans that maybe the simple 'we want to liberate Iraq' answer isn't totally correct. I actually remember her story quite well from the Vanity Fair article after she finally broke her silence. For me hearing her story should have been a big eye opener for those who believe the system is safe and right and truthful. But of course that wasn't what happened.

"Fair Game" doesn't take political sides for the most part, but it doesn't play it safe either. You see a lot of the rage and spit fire from Joe Wilson as he goes on television to defend his wife's name and her work. Wisely Liman uses the actually new footage about the story when say Watts or Penn is watching the tv. That way we can see that the things said about them weren't movie fabrication or exaggeration, but truly mean spirited cheap shots from the talking heads of the media. But the underlined point of it all is to never stop fighting... and they certainly didn't.

Overall this was a well crafted, fantastically acted and real spy drama that totally works. I'm highly impressed with Doug Liman's directing and willingness to not play to just one side. "Fair Game" is one of the very best films I've seen this year and well worth seeking out.

The Next Three Days review

Paul Haggis' "The Next Three Days" is a competent thriller that ought to be more. It comes down to a story that can go in a lot of interesting and different directions; takes some neat ones, but overall feels less surprising then it could be and feels just a bit too stale. Not that there aren't aspects that work, but they could be much better. Screenwriter and director Paul Haggis ("Crash") is actually the main issue here. Not so much his writing as much as his very regular directing. Throughout the vast majority of the film I caught myself thinking what if Michael Mann, Ridley Scott, Paul Greengrass or a number of other, more visually arresting filmmakers had put their eye behind the camera for this. What a thriller this would have been.

Before we jump on that though here's the skinny. Russell Crowe plays a college professor whose wife (Elizabeth Banks) gets arrested for the murder of her boss. We speed up three years as she's attempting more appeals and trying to stay connected with their son while in prison. In their visits the child doesn't respond to her in almost any fashion. Her husband though can't stand any of it. It isn't so much as he feels she's innocent of the crime, but he loves her so much that he cannot take seeing her jailed for possibly the rest of her life. And after the legal system seems to be swinging out of his favor he decides to take on a daring prison break in, rescue and escape. The vast majority of the film is the prep work he does. It's extensive and with some brief words from a master escapist (Liam Neeson in a nice cameo) sets his plan in motion. Though slow this probably one of the more interesting parts of the film. He's sloppy and learning his tricks of breaking into cars or creating bump keys via the internet and doesn't really have the stomach for violence or for making the hard decisions.

Another aspect that works well is Crowe and Banks' chemistry. From the darkly humorous opening it all works well with their back and fourths. They both seem human and quite down to Earth characters. The real problem is simply Haggis' dull directing and lack of style. The idea of "The Next Three Days" can go in so many directions and include so many close calls and tense sequences of suspense or out and out action. Haggis aims more for the suspense, but it rarely hits the mark and is never memorable. I thought back to Michael Mann's "Collateral". It's character rich and includes some decent action and suspense sequences on just a story level. What Mann did was paint us not just full pictures of the characters, but of L.A. from the top down. The world surrounding this one taxi in the city. It made the night and the locations characters and that helps create a real mood. "The Next Three Days" has no mood.

Furthermore Haggis works best in the slower bits of the film in general. Conversation pieces work fine, lead ups to slightly important moments work ok as well, but the bigger sequences or intense stuff is flat. It put me in a similar mind frame of "Derailed" and "Taken" except I liked both of those enough to recommend them, however slight it might be. Haggis is a strong and impressive writer and perhaps his directing will get better or he'll pick a story that might require more of a straight dramatic approach. Either way the film left me disappointed in all it could have done.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 review

I'll spare you the 'interesting' tale of how I gained entry to the CW sponsored screening tonight, but I did and as a general event it was fantastic. Since I go to the movies a ridiculous amount at different venues and for different types of films I'm always looking for experiences that transcend just watching a movie. With some films I look for a lively crowd of spectators to provide some sort of running commentary on the film. Not necessarily actual diologue, but emotions and reactions to what they're experiencing. As far as that's concerned HP 7 and it's giddy bunch of fans there tonight were very entertaining and fairly close to the type of group I excepted. Well... perhaps a bit more tame. Oh and the film? Highly impressive.

For those who don't know my feelings on the long running Harry Potter franchise it goes like this. I think the first two films are GREAT for kids, but don't hold up well to anyone else. If you have kids and want an easy way to introduce them into this universe through cinema or into the fantasy adventure genre all together, they are great points of entry. Then came the third and fourth films which stand as two of my favorites. Three because of the best use of CGI in the entire series of films (this one included) and because they began to really flesh out the characters and universe more. Really most of what we say in three we are still seeing now design wise. However part 4 is my favorite of them all. For me it encompasses all the light, dark, adventure, humor and real world troubles this sort of story could contain and it does it very, very well. This brings us to the fifth and sixth films where David Yates took over directorial duties. For both of those films he was my biggest beef. Both films were photographed nicely and performed well, but his directing was rarely exciting and never packed any real emotion.

The best example was in the last film where the beloved Dumbledore dies. There was ways of shooting and editing that sequence to make it more dramatic and actually deliver something more from it, yet it was just another scene. Nothing special. So heading into the Deathly Hallows I figured it would be more of the same. Happily I was wrong. The film isn't perfect and it doesn't dethrone part 4 as my favorite, but it is now a close second. It seems Yates got the picture for the most part and impressively delivers stronger character moments and fairly decent action sequences. But really the best stuff in the film is the slow pieces. The long stretches without a ton of shoddy CGI and simply Radcliffe, Watson and Grint acting in fascinating, real world locations. If there was ever a time to be impressed with their acting abilities, this would be it.

The supporting cast of well-knowns return and don't have a ton of screen time, but in his few scenes Ralph Fiennes' Voldemort gets to play a bit more than in the last two films and almost reminds me of his grand debut in part 4. Back when he was the character we heard about for three films and then finally get to see in all his horrific glory. Here we see a bit more of his true malice in some great quiet scenes. It really makes me long to see the final confrontation between him and Harry. Not so much the fight, but the lead up to the fight. Harry and the gang are really 90% of the picture. Granted they are always the mainstay of things, but this time there are less character additions or action fills. Harry doesn't have all the answers as usual, but this time I kind of... feel it. It doesn't feel like there's the magical safety net that there used to be and getting out and away from Hogwarts makes it far more atmospheric. The foggy woods mixed with Desplat's quiet score and the general tone Yates sets brings it all together.

So what holds it back from greatness? Honestly it's simple things... well mostly. For some reason they still don't spend either the right time or the right amount of money on their CGI. The Dobby stuff near the end looks pretty good, but quite a bit of the beginning CG appears very dated. Also for a time they pull the old 'let's talk about what we don't show' game. This works when you're trying to avoid hard violence or something along those lines, but they decide to tell us about two rather important characters demise instead of showing us the lead up and/or what happened. It's not as if these scene were horribly violent or prolonged, but visually something ought to be delivered. It's as if Sirius died and someone walks in, tells the group and they have a moment of silence. And finally Yates hasn't quite got the hang of action sequences. His love of wanting to stay on the actors faces is well and good, but a nice wide shot or a longer wide shot to really show off the scope and magnitude of the event would be great. All of those issues however, happen within the first twenty to forty minutes of the two and half hour picture. So there was a lot of making up for me to still be really impressed.

I'm happy to eat crow on this. I'm happy that this turned out to be a fun fantasy adventure that hits the right notes. I don't really feel like this had a climax, but it certainly ends at the right moments. I'm not talking like "Empire Strikes Back" right moments; where everything feels horrible and all hope could be lost one way or another. I'm not even talking about "The Dark Knight" finale where it's a 'happy' ending, but with a less than favorable outcome for the hero. It's more of a just the right moment kind of thing. Power and momentum have swung the other direction for the moment, but the battle is far from over. "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1" is a hit already no matter what. But at least with this installment I feel that it's earned it and it actually has me looking forward to it's conclusion next July.

Skyline review

In no way, shape or form is "Skyline" a good, decent, passable or even mediocre film. "Skyline" is utter piss from opening to closing. Word to the wise for anyone wanting make a film to 'stick it' to the studio system, try not to make a film far, far worst then they could. This was the plan set up by the Brother Strause; heads of the effects company Hy-dra-lux. They've worked on "Avatar" and the "Iron Man" movies, however we forget so did about a dozen other effects houses and more than likely better ones than theirs. The brothers Strause were also the duo behind "Aliens vs. Predators: Requiem" which managed to suck far more than Paul W.S. Anderson's PG-13 predecessor. At least with Anderson's you see the aliens and predators.

Plain and simple these guys have NO CLUE how to make a movie on any level expect put a bunch of highly unimpressive CGI effects into a city, add some sports cars and hots chicks and BAM instant hit. Again... this is why I can never hate Michael Bay. He can do a similar set up, but with better effects, hotter chicks and sports cars that get to perform on camera. Oh and his films tend to also be shot beautifully. "Skyline" effectively makes the real L.A. skyline look gloomy and dull. It's just a bunch of bright lights and buildings. There was nothing added to make us feel anything for what was about to happen to this city and this planet. No care or emotion or lead up. Nope, we just get 94 minutes of a bunch of self-important doucebags who wake up from a party to discover bright lights have landed all around the city and are sucking people up. Eric Balfour ('Texas Chainsaw Massacre'), Donald Faison ('Scrubs'), Brittany Daniels ('Joe Dirt') and Scottie Thompson ('NCIS') play the 'lovable' and 'interesting' group we follow throughout this event.

The one upside to them is they're not hate-able, just boring. About 85% of the film is them sitting in posh high rise apartments peaking through automatic blinds to see what's going on in the streets. After they get tired of that they talk or rather mash around their mouths and things that kind of sound like words come out. Oh and they smoosh up their faces sometimes too. I think they were trying to discover what emotion is. I could be wrong on that one though. Someone on set might have farted. What fills up the rest of "Skyline" is just shotty effects and technical work. Having just seen "Unstoppable" the day before, one thing that stood out was it's sound design. Trains are huge behemoths and they deliver sounds and metal crunching noises that make us believe that fully. We get a feeling of how dangerous these machines really are. In "Skyline" I couldn't tell you want the aliens or their ships sound like. They have a noise... but it's not distant and I get nothing from it.

The overall designs for the alien shit is just as bad. Basically they took elements from "Independence Day" and Spielberg's "War of the Worlds" and smashed them together in as crude a way as possible. Their ship is a giant cluster of steel concealing a blue orb. The aliens themselves are a mix of the previous two films designs with a touch of "Dreamcatcher"; which is to say the aliens eat people using their giant teeth filled vagina mouths. Oh and they regenerate. Because that was really needed.

However the saddest moment of "Skyline" is within it's finale. At one point there is a perfectly fine moment to end this enormous piece of crap. It wouldn't have saved the movie, but it would've been more respectable and logical. NOPE! The brother Strause go for one last hooray within the alien ship. I won't tell you what happens except to say that they rip-off "District 9" in the dumbest goddamn way possible. And by doing that effectively lowered the film to the level of 'a sci-fi channel original movie'. "Skyline" is about two steps away from being on the same level as "Giant Boa vs. Giant Python 2". Congrats boys, in just two films you've nearly hit a directorial low that only likes of Uwe Boll and Ed Wood have achieved so quickly.