Skyline (Rogue Pictures/Universal Studios)

While the general storyline –aliens invading Earth by means of big spaceships hovering over the world’s biggest cities so as to harvest human bodies – seemingly situates the film within the realms of the sci-fi or at least the action-thriller genre, some of the narrative twists and graphic depictions soon allure more to a horror movie than to a typical “the Earth’s last stand”-type of picture.

Unlike films such as "Independence Day," "War of the Worlds," "Cloverfield," and even "Mars Attacks!," "Skyline" paints a very dystopian vision of the future of the human race in the event of an alien attack.

While the film’s directors, the Brothers Strause (Greg and Colin Strause), most certainly maintain their reputation for great special-effects and thus cater extremely well to lovers of such, "Skyline" quickly establishes itself as another example of a movie where the story has to take the backseat to make room for spectacle.

This is not to say that the narrative is inherently bad; on the contrary, there seems to be a lot of potential behind it.

For once, the main characters are neither the heroes defeating the invading aliens for good, nor are they the family dads as part of a select few survivors; leads Jarrod and Elaine are just an ordinary couple trying to survive in the ensuing chaos of a sudden war with an alien race.

Moreover, there are several great opportunities for suspense thrills that go beyond the action; for example, the question of how much a human is changed once exposed to the aliens’ powers, which the Brothers Strause briefly touch upon but soon discard in favour of some huge explosions and chases.

Unfortunately, neither the potential of the plot, nor the spectacular visuals are able to make up for the biggest weakness of the movie – the questions of the What and Why.

Although the Brothers Strause have already stated that Skyline is just the first film of a series with at least two parts, the lack of answers carrying on and including the end of the film leave the viewer with a feeling of dissatisfaction.

It is not explained with what goals the aliens invade, or what their powers can ultimately do to a human (as mentioned earlier); a cliffhanger as the last scene does not provide any answers either.

Many scenes are extremely unclear and confusing, so that “What’s going on now?” becomes the viewers most frequent thought.

While one could argue that not knowing what is happening acts as a narrative device to engage audiences, the storyline in itself, however, is not strong enough to ultimately afford no resolution at all.

Even if the Brothers Strause promise a sequel that might provide the elucidation audiences are looking for from the beginning of "Skyline," it seems pointless and unnecessary that these answers will come at the price of another cinema ticket – particularly, if the narrative itself does not evolve significantly throughout the potential sequel.

Thus, all in all, "Skyline" is an average piece for fans of special effects and action; however, anyone interested in finer plots and/or genre-specific narration might want to miss out on this one.

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