My Review of "Beyond Skyline"

Beyond Skyline has showed up on my Netflix suggestions for quite some time. I didn't quite know if I wanted to see it or not. The premise of the movie was right up my alley but I usually like watching higher budget science fiction movies. My mind has been changed recently because I've seen a bunch of low budget science fiction movies on Netflix and they've impressed me. So I decided to take the dive and see what it was all about.

I originally thought this movie was going to be all based on earth with aliens attacking humans. This idea turned out to be half true. It was surprising how much they packed into this budget movie.

It starts off with this officer named Mark bailing his son out of the police station. They have a rocky relationship but you can tell that they care for each other and they both want to be good guys but their approaches are a little different.

Mark's truck breaks down and they have to take the subway for an awkward trip back home. Things seem to be fine until the subway all of a sudden stops and they hear massive explosions and crazy sounds coming from up above. They all get out only to find out there is a full out alien invasion. Apparently if they look at this light that the aliens are emitting they will be sucked up into their gigantic ship.

Eventually all of them get sucked into the massive alien ship and these aliens are taking humans only to suck their brains out of their heads. Now it's up to Mark and Trent and any other survivors to save the day by eliminating these aliens.

First thing I have to say about this movie is that I was shocked at how good some of the visual effects were. It's starting to look like computers and people adept in computer graphics are really starting to get really good. Don't get me wrong there are a few special effects that look straight out of an amateur YouTube video. There aren't too many that are so bad that it threw me out of the movie. You have to give props where it's due. They probably had a very low budget and they seemed to really stretch every dollar.

I would also like to mention that it was really cool that they got a few of the cast from The Raid to star in this movie. They don't show up until halfway into the movie but when they do the action in the movie really ramps up. I was shocked to see them because I thought it was going to be another ho hum North American science fiction movie. It really changed the tone when they showed up. Almost as if it was a different movie altogether.

In fact, the tone of the movie changes quite a few times. The movie gets progressively crazier and crazier as it continues. Close to the end of the movie it started to feel like a video game. Or at least they pushed ideas that I think a thirteen year old boy would have had. Don't get me wrong, I liked it and it was truly fun to watch their ideas be realized.

Their design of the costumes and the environments were artistic. I liked the artistic direction of most of the movie too. It shows a lot of thought went into this movie before it was made. I just wished they had more money and more time to edit it a little better.

For what it is I thought they did a really good job. It's not a movie for everyone but I think for people looking for an all out action movie it was a pretty good one. Who doesn't want to see space aliens get beat up with crazy fight scenes?

Overall, I was impressed and will not doubt low budget sci-fi movies again. It wasn't the best thing I've ever seen but it was entertaining especially by the end of the movie. I will have to give this movie a 7 out of 10. I can probably suggest this to only my friends that are looking for an action movie where people are kicking space alien butts.