Skyline: Another one where you root for the aliens to win

After a night of partying in Los Angeles Jerrod and his pregnant girlfriend Elaine are awakened by mysterious blue lights. Soon they discover that they are among the few people to have survived an alien invasion and must fight to escape the alien invaders.

No one will ever fault The Strause Brothers (who directed the film) for their abilities to create dazzling visual effects. The Brothers created the visual effects for films such as 300 and Battle: Los Angeles, so it should come as no surprise that the big battle sequences and those sequences which featured the aliens were among the most captivating and entertaining parts of Skyline. But therein lies the problem because all of those special effects could not mask the insipid story and vapid character within the story which were never developed enough to care about. It seemed like The Strause Brothers envisioned their movie as a sort of Cloverfield meets War of the Worlds mashup but in reality, it almost felt like an episode of The Real World L.A. as the survivors just sat around whining and moaning about everything (pre and post alien invasion). The two main characters the audience was supposed to connect with emotionally, Jerrod and Elaine, were so crippled by dreadful dialogue and a lack of depth that it not only made them hard to connect with, it also made them easy to forget. The story was never given proper direction or focus and tended to wonder aimlessly between those scenes of awesome looking visual effects.

Bad story plus bad dialogue plus cool visuals all added up to make Skyline a wasted opportunity of a sci-fi thriller.

Grade: D 

The Fighter: In this corner, one heck of a good film

Growing up in the shadow of his older brother Dickey, a once talented boxer and small town hero who now battles a drug addiction, Mickey has always struggled to be his own man and makes a name for himself as a professional boxer. Things start to turn around for him in the ring once he begins training with someone other than Dickey and starts dating a woman named Charlene, but will he be able to maintain his newfound success?

A film in the same vein as Raging Bull, though lacking in the same kind of intensity story-wise and visceral viciousness when it came to the actual boxing sequences, The Fighter was an engrossing sports drama which sucked viewers in thanks to the impressive performances of its cast. Mark Wahlberg was steady as Mickey, invoking both strength and vulnerability in his portrayal, making him imminently easy to root for. Melissa Leo’s portrayal as Alice (Mickey and Dickey’s overbearing and unscrupulous mother) was horrifying to behold at points (because of the way she treated Mickey) and therefore solid in its own right but major kudos (and a well deserved Oscar) go to Christian Bale as Dickey. When he is first shown on the screen, it’s hard to imagine that this is the same man who portrays Batman, as Bale has the look, twitches and other believable characteristics of an addict. He was not an easy character to like at first, for Dickey had a number of faults beyond his addiction but Bale was able to breath bits and pieces of humanity into the character until he finally decided to give up drugs and recommit himself to living a clean life and helping Mickey with his boxing career. The parallel lines that both he and Mickey took to their ultimate redemption and/or triumph were difficult to watch at times, but that just made their victories much sweeter. Plus it served the purpose of keeping the audience engaged in the story.

Featuring mature directing from David O. Russell, The Fighter delivered an emotionally satisfying story with captivating performances.

Grade: B-

My Soul to Take: My goodness what a bad film

Fifteen years after the serial killer “The Riverton Ripper” was allegedly killed by police a number of teenager, whose birthdays match that fateful day, begin to go missing. Soon people begin to wonder if The Ripper is back and taking revenge or if his soul is somehow responsible for the disappearances.

Once upon a time when one saw the name Wes Craven attached as the director of a film a shiver no doubt went down their spin. For years Craven has directed some of the better horror films released, including A Nightmare on Elm Street and the Scream series, but his newest film My Soul to Take might mark a new career low for it featured a dreadfully befuddling story and absolutely no terrifying or thrilling parts whatsoever. The main villain of the movie, “The Riverton Ripper,” was rarely seen and hardly developed character-wise, like most of the disposable teen cast, which played their cookie-cutter parts as best they could before being dispatched in disappointingly similar fashions.

Without even a decent supporting character to root for the audience had to contend with the perplexingly tedious story, which never had a hint of intrigue and left them wondering why they had wasted an hour and forty minutes of their lives on a horrible film when they could have been doing something better, like watching paint dry.

Grade: D-

Devil: A wasted opportunity

Five strangers become trapped in an elevator. The situation becomes worse as each of them is murdered in a horrifying fashion and it’s up to a Detective to undercover the how’s and whys before everyone is killed.

Devil had an intriguing/promising premise that could have provided filmgoers with a thought-provoking thriller in that the devil was trapped in an elevator with four other people, looking to collect their souls. And while there were a few tense moments in which the close quarters and sound were effectively utilized to make the audience jump, they were never given a solid rationalization as to why the devil had to catch an elevator to nab those specific people. Somehow the suicide of a person at the beginning of the film triggered the events but aside from that, the audience just got a bunch of “it’s fate” dialogue and explanations and was left to fill in the blanks for themselves.

Add to that a cast of totally obnoxious characters, the banality of the “twist” in the story at the end of the film (a trademark of the film’s writer/producer M. Night Shyamalan's previous stories, and one he should consider giving up as it seems more contrived than creative anymore) and Devil came up short in delivering on its interesting idea.

Grade: D