The majority of the film is predictible, it's full of the usual tropes and cliches and like most Hollywood films plays it very very safe. It's mostly loyal to the first film and even succeeds in expanding the mythology further, but honestly not all too well. Once again it's big, loud, cgi filled and fifty shades of dumb but it accomplishes exactly what it set out to do and manages to do it better than the first movie. This time starring the superior Frank Grillo we see a different group of people during the invasion and their desperate fight for survival. Sufficed to say I wasn't impressed with Skyline (2010) it was a big dumb Hollywood sci-fi epic that wowed with cgi but was held together by a generic wafer thin plot.
Nevertheless, I feel Beyond Skyline deserves a watch and would recommend it to sci-fi fans. In its current form it just feels rushed and quite frankly stupid.
BEYOND SKYLINE. MOVIE
I feel the story could have worked if the movie had more time to develop it in a natural way. You thought slaughtering aliens in heavy armor with knives was over the top? You haven't seen anything yet! All in all, the movie is quite entertaining but it could have been much better. But nothing can rival the final 5 minutes of the movie. Why? Because the mystique is gone and because the mighty aliens are now being slaughtered in melee combat by some very vulnerable humans. By the time the movie reaches it final stages, you're not going to care for it anymore. This is done in a gradual but heavy handed manner. It is if the screenwriter decided "*beep* it, I'm going all in on this shit" and just destroyed the carefully crafted momentum from the first part of the movie. The plot starts to get lazy, the characters start to behave oddly and the whole thing starts to fall apart.
But by the time the movie is half way through, things start to take a turn for the worse. It really builds up a nice momentum and keeps you interested. Lots of special effects, lots of cool environments and lots of "what the *beep* are those things" moments. Once we peek inside the alien ship things start to get really interesting. The main characters are introduced in a very clichéd manner but I don't think that will bother the audience.
The first half of Beyond Skyline is pretty good. Unfortunately, Beyond Skyline takes the most interesting ideas from the first part and completely obliterates them in the most profane way possible. I thought it was a well made alien movie that had some mystique to it and an unique ending. In the end, this is a reasonably entertaining B-movie with great visuals, cardboard characters and enough going on to hold one's attention. I could have done with less giant robot suit fighting, an aspect added with this film, seemingly inspired by Pacific Rim. Regardless, it doesn't bother me, as it adds to the B-movie appeal. That element becomes key to the story, and while it's no less silly, there's an attempt made to explain and justify it. The alien's backstory is explored more, as is the first film's silly reveal that the aliens are after human brains. While the first movie was a thriller, this one heads decidedly into action movie territory, with Grillo and Asian action star Uwais both getting into many a martial arts battle. This sequel, which still has the Strause brothers as producers, looks just as sharp, although some shots suffer from being too brightly lit, allowing the FX work to be more obvious. That film was made by the Strause brothers, special effects pros that did almost all of the films very good visual effects at their own homes with home computers. The first film was a modestly successful low-budget affair with a B-movie sensibility and a polished look that belied the small budget. Later, after a trip on one of the alien spaceships leaves them stranded in Laos, our heroes join forces with Sua (Iko Uwais) and his underground drug cartel to fight back, while also protecting a mysterious child that may be the key to salvation. They team with other passengers, including train operator Audrey (Bojana Novakovic) and blind Vietnam war vet Sarge (Antonio Fargas) to try and escape from the invaders. This time we follow burn-out ex-cop Mark (Frank Grillo) and his JD son Trent (Jonny Weston) who are on the LA subway train when the invasion begins. The first half of this film takes place simultaneously with the events of the first film, where LA residents try to survive a citywide alien invasion.
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