Monday, 22 March 2021

VOD: Skylines aka Skylin3s (dir: Liam O'Donnell, 2021)

"Hey, don't die!"
"I'll keep it in mind."

This weak franchise inexplicably gets a third, Anglo-centric outing that is possibly the most cohesive of the three films but is still intrinsically daft.  Throwing everything into the mix from District 9 to Starship Troopers to Aliens and many more, it actually does a good job of tying into and expanding the established mythology, and the large-scale effects - a signature of the series - are mostly effective and good-looking.  As one of the characters points out, this film is basically a heist movie with heavy sci-fi trappings as our mismatched troop have to steal a MacGuffin (here, an energy core) from the aliens' homeworld in order to save Earth.  The Earth-bound B-plot is utterly dispensible, but the main story is presented with a sense of commitment and earnestness that makes Skylines a surprisingly reasonable cheap sci-fi actioner.
 

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