Skyline

Malevolent intergalactic critters swoop down to harvest our citizens and ravage yet another postcard-perfect horizon in Skyline, a generic war-of-the-worlds imitation featuring noisy H.R. Giger–ish battleships, squid-gorillas with brain-sucking tentacles, and other mismatched monsters who hypnotize and infect people with blue LEDs.

In this technically spectacular but otherwise unremarkable B-movie by F/X pros turned filmmakers Colin and Greg Strause, the most profound ideas are the stoopid action-sequence setups, during which everyone barks at one another inside their penthouse home base (which conveniently has a telescope synched up to a plasma screen, perfect for watching the big show outside): Let’s run to the roof! Let’s run to the parking garage! Let’s stay in the party pad! Let’s try the roof again!

The military eventually shows up to nuke the joint, but there’s no urgency, suspense or charm with all that back-row rattle.