So let's all take a deep breath, log in to Netflix, and savor something true and noble in this untrue, ignoble world...
Beyond Skyline.
I can't really say enough good things about this movie. But goodness knows I'll try.
It's a bizarre miracle that this bonkers alien invasion bonanza even exists.
First off, it's a sequel to Skyline. A film that didn't quite set the box office on fire, and no one seemed to like. I think I was the only one in the theater when I saw it in 2011. But I liked it okay and was proud to contribute financially to its box office take. (Full disclosure: I'm a sucker for alien movies and I loved the scenes of aliens vacuuming up every citizen in L.A. and I admire the scrappy micro-budget way it was put together. [Fuller disclosure: in retrospect, I think I was friends with the general manager of the Downtown Regal where it played and she let me in for free. So I didn't actually contribute to its box office.])
Still: Aliens. Vacuuming. L.A. Cleanin' up the town!
Q: So why on Earth did it get a sequel?
A: CHINA.
Skyline made bank in China, so the filmmakers got to take another swing. And hoo boy, did they swing for the fences.
The first Skyline was open-ended, so they clearly always intended it to be a franchise (Beyond Skyline is open-ended, too, and I'm already stoked for the next one and I hope they call it Waaay Beyond Skyline). Broad strokes: aliens invade L.A. and it's revealed at the end of the movie that they rip out our brains and use them to power their drone robot soldiers. Our hero gets nearly-abducted multiple times, which builds up his resistance to aliens controlling his ripped-out brain so in the LAST SCENE of the first film, his ripped-out brain achieves consciousness in his alien robot drone body and he saves his pregnant wife from the aliens. And he's about to rumble with some other alien drones and take on the alien Big Bads when - ROLL CREDITS.
Weird flick, weird ending. So yes, I was stoked to randomly discover they made a sequel.
Beyond Skyline runs parallel to the original for 15 minutes or so with different characters in a different section of L.A. Folks get sucked up, and there's a whole lotta alien fights with a variety of interesting creatures. And then a huge epic scene where the giant alien ship gets taken down, then reassembles itself, and more mayhem and monsters and shenanigans and you think, well, they just blew their budget. Looks like they already spent ten times as much as the original Skyline. There can't be more than that.
There is! You, you lucky viewer you, still get:
-An extended battle/chase/rescue scene on the alien ship where we meet back up with characters from the original Skyline, and
-A trip to Laos, where we meet up with an entirely new cast of colorful characters doing AWESOME martial arts work, and
-A kooky scientist in an underground bunker in an ancient architectural site, seeking to genetically engineer a solution for the alien virus involving a fast-growing half-alien kid that they got along the way, I forgot to mention her because there's SO MUCH AWESOME STUFF GOING ON, and
-A mega-stupendous showdown with all the robots and aliens you can possibly imagine going head-to-head with augmented humans doing super-duper martial arts and there's a ton of alien and human mayhem, and
-Then we flash forward and reveal the half-alien kid all grown up and leading a star fleet to take on the aliens in their home world with bang-kazoom lasers blazing, and -
-ROLL CREDITS!
Gah! Want more now!
Bonus feature: this movie cost a pittance to make. $20 million. It looks like it cost ten times as much. This is a miracle of low-budget film, a crazy-pills all-over-the-place all-stops-pulled cinematic extra-extravagant extravaganza.
Let us celebrate it with song.
-B.P. Kasik/Phony McFakename
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