Beyond Skyline - Too far 'beyond' for my liking

I remember watching the original 'Skyline' movie some time after its release.  It was fair to say that the 'new take' on an alien invasion movie had had its fair share of negative reviews, but I quite enjoyed it.  It had more than a few nice touches and scenes which were memorable and I've watched it a few times since when I'm in the mood for something to relax my brain to.  In the first one, many objected to the last few scenes at the end, not to mention how the characters survive a nuclear bomb being detonated right on top of their heads and still survive without the use of a fridge to hide in.  But, despite these flaws, I thought I'd give the sequel a go.  Now, after watching it, I have to say that I could probably have done without bothering. 

It starts out okay enough - a cast of pretty much unknown actors are underground in the Los Angeles subway system when a giant alien spaceship arrives overhead and sucks up the population with a mesmerising bright light, ready to use our juicy human brains as batteries to drive their army of drone-soldiers.  Therefore, our plucky band of stereotypes don't end up getting their vital organs removed along with the rest of us.  Until the do.  Without wanting to spoil the film too much, it's a bit all over the place in terms of settings and pacing.  As I say, we start in a stricken LA, then we have the space ship, then - bizarrely - end up in the jungles of somewhere that looks like that set from the end of the original 'Mortal Kombat' film.

And, throughout these wide and varied locations, the film really does struggle with what it wants to say.  The aliens were near impossible to kill in the first film (even going as far as to 'reform' when smashed apart).  Now they can be killed with knifes - which is a far cry from a species that is basically immune to nukes (and they even get badly injured when hit over the head with a wooden, breakable crate - in a scene which reminds me of that old 'Simpsons' episode where Moe the bartender thwarts an alien invasion using a plank of wood with a nail in it).

It's also pretty long - certainly longer than most B-movies and it feels like they were just either trying to cram in as much as they could, or just didn't know which bit worked best, so they went for it all.  During this time you see glimpses of other sc-fi tropes like 'Pacific Rim' and the 'starchild' from the original 'V' TV series.

Basically, if - like me - you did actually enjoy the original, then the sequel doesn't really feel like it expands the first, choosing to re-write all the 'rules' that were established first time round.  Yes, the special effects were actually quite good in a blatant B-movie (not including the guy in the alien suit who looked every bit like a man in a reasonably-priced Halloween costume).  Whereas the original was pretty bleak, you get a lot more of a feeling that the humans could win at any time.  Believe it or not, I'm all for that - if the humans win that means there won't be a THIRD in the 'Skyline' series.  At least there was quite a humorous 'outtakes' section during the credits - possibly one of the main highlights!

5/10 a hard trek, a bit like unicycling to Mordor and back