Movie #189 Skyline *2010*

This movie doesn't deserve a full review.  That is bad B-movie schlock from hat to cattle.  This movie was made by a pair of brothers who have 62 credits on IMDB as visual artists, and it shows.  The movie does have excellent effects, but they are used so poorly.  An interesting comment in the movie comes early when Donald Faison (playing an self obsessed actor) mentions to Neil Hopkins (playing his squarmy agent) "How are the effects?" to which the response is "They look like shit, but the director loves them!".

The movie is an alien invasion flick.  It is one part Independence Day, one part Cloverfield, one part Skin-emax softcore porn.  The pencil headed Eric Balfour plays an artist or something, it is never clearly explained.  His recently pregnant girlfriend is played by Scottie Thompson.  Brittany Daniel (who can act, she plays the tranny on Always Sunny) is Faison's bitchy girlfriend.  Faison's personal assistant and part time human pin cushion is Crystal Reed.  Have you heard of any of these people?  There is probably a good reason for that.

The final cast member I would like to mention is David Zayas.  Holly crap is he terrible!  He delivers every line like it is the last thing he will ever say.  I can't recall a better example of over acting.  I would love to go on for days talking about how terrible this guy is, but I have a decent movie to review.

Don't get me wrong.  It's not like these actors had ANYTHING to work with.  This is what happens when you let visual artists make a movie.  Everything is only set in place to show off the cool blue lights that fall onto the LA landscape.  In the equally terrible mockumentary "I'm Still Here" with Q. Pheonix, Diddy points out that he hates it when actors think they can make a good album just because they have a cheap recording studio in their basement.  That is what happened here.

Anyway, avoid this movie.  It isn't even so good it's bad good.  I give Skyline ★1/2.

Movie #64 TRON (The First One)

Very DOS.

That is the first though I had when I tried to explain the 1982 Disney movie TRON to him.  He is a tech geek and somehow he had never seen TRON.  I will attempt to explain TRON:  Kevin Flynn was a computer programmer and had a few programs stolen.  The man who stole them is now the head of they company they worked for and Flynn owns an arcade.  He still attempts to hack into the Master Control which is an early imaging of AI.  Allen and Laura are friends of Flynn's and they work at the company.  They come up with a plan to get Flynn into the building so he can find evidence of his wrong doing.  It all goes haywire when Flynn get sent into the actual computer and is forced to literally fight against computer programs.

This is the part of the movie everyone remembers.  It has a very blue and gray motif with lightened highlights.  There is a disc battle that is supposed to be memorable but I found it boring and silly.  There are also motorcycle chases and other action sequences that people of a certain age cherish.  The movie is supposed to show you what it looks like inside a computer.  It is very 90 degrees and boring and lifeless.  Even with humans or "users" as they are called inside the shinny box residing there.

I found this movie mind bottling.  It wasn't good.  The story is a mess.  Almost nothing in it makes much sense.  I though I was remembering it wrong so I re-watched it last week in preparation for TRON Legacy (blog to come).  My kids are excited about the new film and I thought I would give them some back story.  I ended up giving them not much of a story at all. 

I'm sure that the visuals were insane in 1982 but they look cheap now.  Keep in mind that Star Wars had been out for 6 years already and in my opinion it looks WAY better than this.  Jeff Bridges plays Flynn and he is charismatic and fun.  The rest of the cast is filled out with lesser known actors.

TRON never managed to charm me or win me over.  My kids disliked it as well.  My kids have really been showing up a lot in these blogs.  Must be the cold weather.  It felt like Disney spent all their time and money on making a special effects flagship.  Hummmm, I wonder if that will be foreshadowing of TRON Legacy?  If that is the plan that is fine, but you run the risk of exactly what happened to the film.  It looks terrible and ridiculous.  Great effects of sci-fi movies don't rely entirely on the visuals.  There needs to be a story to bond with.  That is why 2001: A Space Odyssey and Alien and Metropolis might look dated, but the are still resonate today.  I give TRON a 2/5 stars.  Check out the Trailer Park to see for yourself.