Skyline Blu-ray Review

4.5 Stars (out of 5)

Synopsis

After a wild night of partying with friends, Terry (Donald Faison) awakens to discover that he's one of the few remaining people on Earth. Banding together with a small group of survivors (Eric Balfour, Scottie Thompson, David Zayas, Brittany Daniel and Crystal Reed), Terry sets out to solve the mystery of what happened to the human race. Greg and Colin Strause (whose work includes the visual effects for Avatar and 300) direct. (Buy Now $22.99)

Starring:

Eric Balfour, Donald Faison, Scottie Thompson, David Zayas, and Brittany Daniel

Director:

Greg Strause & Colin Strause

Blu-ray Release Date:

March 22, 2011

Subtitles:

English SDH, French, Spanish

Rating

Overall rating weighted as follows:
Audio 40%, Video 40%, Special Features 20%, Movie - its just our opinion so take it with a grain of salt

Audio 4.6 Stars (out of 5)

Dolby and DTS Demo Discs used as basis for comparison

• Subwoofer - 5.0 Stars
• Dialog - 4.5 Stars
• Surround Effects - 4.5 Stars
• Dynamic Range - 4.5 Stars

English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, French: DTS 5.1, Spanish: DTS 5.1

The audio track for this film is very busy. Low rumbling of giant spaceships giant and explosions test your subwoofer. Helicopters flying overhead and show off the surround effects. This film has everything ... and a little too much of it. There is so much added non-plot related noise, it sometimes takes away from how good it all sounds. Even with all that said, the revving of the Ferrari's engine sounded awesome.

Video  4.5 Stars (out of 5)

Spears & Munsil Benchmark Blu-ray Edition used as basis for comparison

• Color Accuracy  - 4.5 Stars
• Shadow detail - 4.5 Stars
• Clarity - 4.5 Stars
• Skin tones - 4.5 Stars
• Compression - 4.5 Stars

Codec: MPEG-4 AVC. Resolution: 1080p. Aspect Ratio: 2.40:1. Original Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1

Lots of time and attention was spent on the special effects and look of this movie, and it shows in the video performance. There is very little film grain and great skin tones. Every tiny pulsing corpuscle that turns to an unnatural hue is clearly visible and demonstrate the superb clarity. The shimmering gloop and bright glowing eyes of the aliens also display well while grossing you out a little.  If you like contrast between lights and darks, this movie has plenty of it including lots of gimmicky lens flare.

Bonus Features 4.0 Stars (out of 5)

You kind of get the feeling the filmmakers knew that there would be not special addition of this movie, so they threw in as many extras and commentaries they could. They love this move, and it shows because they love to talk about it. I have never seen a movie with this many commentaries.

• Directors' Audio Commentary
• Writers' Audio Commentary
• Deleted and Extended Scenes with Optional Commentary (HD, 7 minutes): Seven deleted or extended scenes hosted by O'Donnell, Cordes and the Strauses."
• Alternate Scenes with Optional Commentary (HD, 3 minutes): Two alternative scenes with introductions from the filmmakers.
• Pre-Visualizations with Optional Commentary (HD, 10 minutes): Two preproduction scenes with optional commentary.
• Trailers with Optional Commentary (HD, 4 minutes): Yes you read that right, trailers with commentary tracks, these guys love to talk about this movie.
• BD-Live Functionality
• News Ticker
• My Scenes Bookmarking.

Movie - 2.0 Stars (out of 5)

Review

The directors of this film (the Strause brothers) are well known for making special effects in movies like Avatar, Iron Man, and 2012. The writers of this movie are also well know for special effects. That alone should tell you all you need to know. This movie is not directed well, does not have a good script, but it has great special effects. The "Brothers Strause" made this movie without any major studio help for under $20 million dollars, and more than 80% of that money went to special effects.

Most of this movie happens in one apartment with 5 people, while an alien evasion is going on outside their windows as they argue about what to do. Their is no chemistry between the characters, and honestly I didn't like most of them and was kind of happy when some of them died. However, I do like the alien design. The aliens did some interesting things with human brains and the pretty blue hypnotizing lights were intriguing. This film looks great and sounds great, but it isn't good at all. It's kind of like biting into a juicy fillet migon and finding a huge chewy vein in it.

Movie Trailer