Skyline (2010)

I am partial to alien invasion flicks even if they were alleged ripoffs from successful predecessors. In Skyline, a Brothers Strausse winter release, an alien invasion (with no attempt to test audience's guessing) nothing so original as War of the Worlds (the original one) or Independence Day (1994) (ID4).

The visitors' modus operandi? An irresistible light which burns your veins and draws you helplessly into the tractor beams of mammoth mother ships, harvesting homo sapiens to extract their brain (stem included), presumably as a source of energy, nourishment. My theory: neural energy amplified, explaining the apparent regenerative abilities of a mother ship having been taken down by a deployed nuclear bomb.

The airborne jellyfish-like extractors reminds of the drones in the Matrix trilogy, tentacles trailing and the behemoths roaming the grounds bears a striking resemblance to the ghostly aliens appearing in Final Fantasy.

The aliens' hostile intentions? Harvest all human life, much like the theory which unfolded in M. Night Shyamalan's (not so box office material) Signs. The harvesting mother ships look like an inverted version of Nero's dreadnought, Narada in Star Trek 2009 and particle weapons in the likes of the alien fighter crafts in ID4.

I actually enjoyed the movie despite it's blatant similarities with so many alien invasion movies. I can only try to justify the liking as a result of a long-time affair with science fiction, but this movie is no "sleeper" like District 9 (2009).

If one is critical, a DVD review would suffice if parting with money offends the economies of scale in entertainment enjoyment.

I'd give this a 5.0 out of a possible 10.