Skyline

Skyline was the end of the year Action/Sci-Fi of 2010 that once again begged the question, "Is there intelligent life outside our planet?". The answer given to us by AVP directing duo Colin and Greg Strause is a bit of a mixed one. Before I get to far into that, I will intoduce this star studded cast, unveiling my rating system, and giving my moments after conclusion thoughts and reflections.

First we have Eric Balfour (Texas Chainsaw Massacre the remake) and Donald Faison (Scrubs) as two BFF's who have been separated by life and land, Balfour is still in NY and Faison had moved out west to make his money (the movie never says really what he does that has apparently made him rich, but he is). Scottie Thomson (hottie) plays Balfour's girlfriend and Brittney Daniel (hottie and Club Dread survivor) portrays Faison's blond bimbo trophy girlfriend. There is a small cast of supporting actors who are virtually replaceable by any generic quasi-attractive struggling talent wiping the tables of Hollywood's counter tops with only one exception, David Zayas (Dexter). In my opinion Zayas was the best actor in the movie, even if he is a somewhat bad guy.

The movie starts out a little rocky, pulling out the "flash forward half a day" card then wasting no time going back 16 hours to establish a basic story line and character profiling. There is nothing really ground breaking or innovative in the development of the storyline at all. Balfour and Thompson are on vacation in LA visiting Faison. Half a day later (after some intense partying), LA (and for all we know the world) is being attacked by unknown aliens from outer space. The trailer is a bit misleading at this point because it shows news casters talking about aliens, and in the whole movie there are none. Now let me get back to the point about the "mixed message of intelligent life". Not to give much away (sarcasm), but the aliens have come to earth to harvest human brains. Apparently their species is born without brains and desperately need to behead us and use ours. They better watch it though, the quality of brains on this planet is rapidly declining and they might come up short on their quota.

About 30 minutes into the movie I turn to Angela (my girlfriend) and said, "Maybe they dulled down the dialog and acting because they wanted to save some money in the budget for super amazing CGI graphics." This however was not the case. The CGI was alright, but that is being pretty generous. I have definitely seen worse though. I do have to give the writers props for making such a wide and diverse grouping of aliens. There were some that flew like planes, giant colossus looking ones and even super rip-off looking ones. Angela put it perfectly by saying they looking like "the aliens from Independence Day but with lights all over them."

Putting aside the crappy acting, dialog and CGI (I have been saying this a lot lately about movies) there wasn't really much I liked about this flick. The chicks were hot but they were all pretty whiny the whole time. I would say the explosions were cool (the government nukes downtown LA and its like 45 min into the movie-so its not the ending) but even that couldn't kill any, literally, any of the aliens.

On to my rating system. I have come up with a pretty ingenious rating system and it has been developed by Angela (because I don't know how to use Photo Shop). I will be rating all of these movies (as long as I am not sued) on what I call the Willis/Stewart Scale. It's pretty easy really, each movie will either be good or bad, then be followed by a point value. If the movie is good, then it will have a "Bruce Willis" head and if it's bad then it will have a "Kristen Stewart" head (if you have a problem with the good/bad actors I have picked then say something; maybe someone is more deserving in their place). The point system is .5 though 5 heads symbolizing how well I liked/disliked the movie. Basically if I give a movie 4 Stewarts then I think it's a pretty awful movie that you should never see, if I give it 2 Willis' I think it was ok but no hurry needed in its watching.

With all of that said, I rate Skyline as a good 3 Stewarts. I hope to God I never see this movie again. It wasn't worth the $1.09 I payed for Redbox and I wish I had picked something else. From now on I will be posting the rating system under the trailer but I thought it would cause mass confusion and hysteria if it was revealed too soon. Have a lovely week and hope to see you next Tuesday for another "After the Credits".

Resident Evil: Afterlife

Welcome to my Movie Review Blog; After the Credits, I am Little John. For my kickoff review, I chose to start this party off with a bang. This isn't going to become a reoccurring theme, me reviewing a movie so far into its franchise, but I felt compelled to make this my first official post. I had the misfortune of talking myself into watching the 4th movie in the Resident Evil's "slow train wreck of destruction" movie saga and this is my moments after conclusion thoughts and reflections.

To give a little bit of background for those of you who have missed the first three movies (I can't imagine why), these films are very loosely adopted from the video game of the same name by Capcom. Basically an evil corporation dealing in bio-chemical weaponry has made an oops and contaminated the whole world. Dreadfully long story short, these movies have turned Milla Jovovich into what the "Lara Croft" movies have done to Angelina Jolie (hint: I'm not a huge Angelina Jolie fan).

In this installment, hopefully the last of the saga, Alice once again finds herself alone searching for uninfected humans throughout the world. She first finds Ali Larter (hottie and returning cast member from the 3rd installment) in Alaska and they then fly somewhere (I wasn't paying attention to much of where they were going) and later finding out they were now in LA. Then it pretty much follows the normal "crappy zombie movie" storyline of finding uninfected humans surrounded by tons of living dead. A lot of people die, some more surprising than others, and a small group made it out to a tanker in the ocean.

I'm not going to ruin the entire movie for those of you who really want to see it. But it isn't worth the price of our Netflix subscription, nor the $1 you would pay for Redbox. Nothing new happens, the dialog is mind numbing and the so called "worlds most advanced 3D technology" makes the CGI seem like its produced in the mid '90s. Directed by Paul W.S. Anderson isn't saying much either. After directing all four Resident Evil movies as well as a slew of Hollywood "don't sees" he is trying his chops out in the newest adaptation of writer Alexandre Dumas's "The Three Musketeers" later this year. Look forward to that review.

I have not yet come up with a rating system for this blog, but if I had, this movie would probably fall a couple of rubber bat-suit nipples short of a Batman & Robin sequel... Until next time...