Rating summary

Movie		1.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		1.0
Overall		1.5

Skylines Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman January 18, 2021

Hopefully it is due at least as much to how forgettable a certain franchise is as to how addled this reviewer’s brain is that I didn’t even remember I had reviewed Beyond Skyline, until I actually received this disc in the mail and started reading about the film contained on it. Skylines is the third film in a series that began with Skyline back in 2010. Now a grand total of three films over the course of more than a decade (at least in terms of both any theatrical exhibition and then resultant release for home video in any number of formats) may not seem like a lot, but some curmudgeons (ahem) might argue that Skylines is even less necessary than Beyond Skyline was. The second film arguably improved a bit on the admittedly low bar the first film set, but this third installment is probably another (and some may hope final) dip on a cinematic roller coaster ride that provides occasional visual blandishments but which has been surprisingly unexciting a lot of the time.

While the entire Skyline enterprise might humorously be seen as analogous to the “harvesting” aliens in the film (who, in the second outing, simply ripped the heads off of humans to get access to those yummy, yummy brains), in that the films tend to purloin any number of tropes utilized in higher profile sci-fi extravaganzas, there’s an increasing sense of entropy about the entire charade in this third film. In his review of the film’s (evidently extremely brief) theatrical exhibition, my colleague Brain Orndorf rightly points out that this particular film bears undeniable “resemblances” (yeah, let’s just say that) to Aliens, though there are other elements in the story which are going to, um, remind people of other films. In fact the whole human-alien hybrid idea, especially considering the mechanized, Transformers-esque, appearance of some of the creatures struck me personally of being rather reminiscent of certain aspects in Ghost in the Shell 4K. Unfortunately, writer-director Liam O’Donnell has little of Mamoru Oshii’s metaphysical proclivities.

In that regard, Skylines's focal character of Rose (Lindsey Morgan) may not exactly be Motoko Kusanagi by any other name, but there may still be tangential tethers between the characters that some may perceive. If Beyond Skyline kind of played with the implied timeline of the first story to offer a kinda sorta "reveal", Skylines is clearly an epilogue of sorts to the first two films, with Rose and a cohort of "pilots", including brother Trent (Jeremy Fitzgerald) as well as a bunch of paramilitary types, living in a post-Apocalyptic (or at least post- alien invasion) society that is further hampered by (wait for it) a global pandemic. In this case, the pandemic may be especially lethal to those with alien DNA, causing them to "revert" to "totally alien" status (which, considering their penchant for ripping the heads off of humans to get to those yummy, yummy brains may not exactly be a good thing). That then segues into a "mission" for Rose and the assembled multitude to venture out into space to (again, wait for it) save Mankind.

Skylines , like its predecessors, features purple and blue laden special effects sequences which give the film a kind of distinctive look. It's notable that large swaths of this story play out on a planet called Cobalt 1, as if to acknowledge the prevalence of tones on the blue end of the spectrum. Performances are generally interesting, and it's fun to see Alexander Siddig as a General in this enterprise. But my hunch is Skylines is simply going to strike even fans of the first film as being too derivative and rote to ever amount to more than being a low grade time killer.

Skylines Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Skylines is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Vertical Entertainment with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.39:1. The closing credits for this film tout "Red Effects", but whether that means this was captured with Red cameras like Beyond Skyline I'm frankly unsure as I have been unable to track down any really authoritative technical data on the shoot (as always with my reviews, if anyone has any, Private Message me, and I'll happily update things here). One way or the other, this is a nicely sharp and often very well detailed looking presentation, though probably unsurprisingly some of the more brightly lit outdoor London material offers better overall detail levels than some of the very heavily graded blue material and other darker moments. The CGI is rather well done, all things considered, and it looks like (according to the IMDb) the sole award this film has managed to snag is a Best Visual Effects nod from the Other Worlds SciFi Film Festival in Austin. As mentioned above, this is another Skyline offering virtually dripping in deep jewel tones toward the blue and purple end of the spectrum and in that regard, the palette is very nicely suffused for the most part. There are occasional moments, not just limited necessarily to VFX sequences, where things are a bit soft and fine detail is not as abundant as in the bulk of this presentation.

Skylines Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Skylines features a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track that probably isn't the slam bang audio overkill that a top flight science fiction outing might provide, but which does offer pretty consistent immersion, and at least occasional bursts of LFE to enliven the proceedings. The space elements as well as some of the dystopian outdoor material offer good opportunities for ambient environmental effects, and the side and rear channels are also used for effective placement of a pretty rote sounding score. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout. Optional English subtitles are available (and there are occasional forced subtitles for "alien speak").

Skylines Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Making of Skylines (1080p; 24:02) is a decent EPK, with several interviews and some fun behind the scenes footage of wire work and the like (some of which looks like it was shot on VHS, considering the quality).


• Deleted Scenes (1080p; 13:53)

Skylines Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The frequently questionable accuracy of Wikipedia lists the boxoffice take of Skylines as an incredibly paltry $69,808, which may mean that some bean counter somewhere made a serious calculation in thinking there was an audience for this piece. Considering the fact that there was more than half a decade between Skyline and then Beyond Skyline, with another handful of years between the second film and this would seem to suggest that those trying to create a franchise out of this already iffy property might have wanted to speed things up in order to capture whatever lightning in the bottle the first film managed to achieve. The story here is just plain appropriative, though the visuals are once again pretty engaging. Technical merits are solid for those considering a purchase.