A sci-fi flick on par with Syfy channel quality as far as storyline, acting, and aesthetic, Skylines (or Skyline 3, or SKYLIN3S) is the follow up to 2010’s Skyline and 2017’s Beyond Skyline. Skylines (2020) is an equal balance of science fiction and action thriller, utilizing a lot of CGI as well as practical effects to produce the aliens and their technology, as well as having a hefty amount of hand-to-tentacle combat scenes that were intense and felt high impact. Keeping in line with the theme of ‘taking the fight to them’, Beyond Skyline director Liam O’Donnell returns with this third installment that sees a team go on a mission on an alien planet à la Aliens (1986).

15 years after the invasion that took place in the second installment of the trilogy, Rose (Lindsey Morgan) is on the run. A virus spreading quickly through the military ranks of the aliens is causing them to revert to their base instincts and hunt for humans again, despite them being biologically altered to coexist. A solution to the impending pandemic lies on a planet called Cobalt 1, which houses the secrets of this alien race and a code that may be used to keep them free from hive-mind control for 100 years. The military captures and enlists Rose, who they see as the only person capable of completing the mission, putting her on an elite extraction team including trained hunters and her estranged brother.

Like many movies as of late, Skylines is capitalizing on the current zeitgeist, having a virus as a cause of conflict in the film. Alexander Siddig proves that he shines best in sci-fi settings, following up his post-Deep Space 9 career with a surprise cameo in this film as General Radford, and the film’s star Lindsey Morgan (The 100) also proves that she can carry an action role with grace and ferocity. The rest of the cast are unfortunate stock characters, with the love-interest, the sexy female scientist, the clean-cut over-militarized soldier, etc., all playing their surface characters to the best of their abilities, given Skyline‘s cheesily written script. For how silly I found a few of the characters to be, namely Trent who reminded me of “Bumblebee”, and from the stiff, action movie tone that was produced from this movie, I felt that Skylines should have had some humor — it took itself way too seriously for it not having any horror elements, it is straight action and could have at least been more entertaining with some comic relief or memorable action movie one-liners.

The movie is heavy on the industrial rock music, making use of this genre’s gritty vibe to add an edginess to the film. The score and the sound mixing seemed theatrical, though the cinematography and suitmation effects seemed along the lines of made for TV quality, which is not terrible in and of itself, but the early 2000’s sci-fi aesthetic did not do the already cheesy sci-fi premise any favors. As someone who has seen the first movie but not the second, in my opinion, one would definitely have had to have seen the first and second installments of the trilogy in order to understand and enjoy this movie at all, despite the data dump shoe-horned in at the beginning of this movie

I have the sneaking suspicion that Skylines would best be enjoyed by those entertained by the Transformers movies, and perhaps those who enjoy the sci-fi military satire stylings of Paul Verhoven (Starship Troopers, Total Recall). The movie feels like a B-grade sci-fi movie of the 90’s or early 2000’s, only it is devoid of any clever social commentary and is instead intended to be a serious attempt a thrilling sci-fi — it is certainly entertaining, but it is no classic, resting on brightly colored special effects and stock-characters. and to add insult to injury, it has the audacity to force a storyline for a fourth installment, ending on a teaser by introducing new clues to the plot. In my opinion, Skylines is an unnecessary continuation of this story, but Vertical Entertainment will be releasing the film in theaters and to VOD on December 18th for audiences to once again enter this post-apocalyptic alien world.

MOVIE RATING — 6 out of 10