Review of Dark Skies (2013) by Andrew D — 03 Jun 2013

I'm usually one for science fiction films (in fact, Alien is one of my favorite films of all time), but Dark Skies is a movie that could have been better. Starring Keri Russell, Dark Skies chronicles the lives of the Barret family.

They're just a plain nuclear family that want to get by in life. Suddenly, strange things begin occurring. Birds are flying into their house, things are moving around at night, and the youngest boy, Sammy, is talking to a mysterious figure that he calls the "Sandman.

" While the husband believes that there's a logical explanation behind everything, his wife seems to be thinking that there's something other worldly happening. I was never really interested in seeing this.

The trailers just looked stupid beyond belief with many unintentional comical moments. Now that I've seen it, I can say that it's not as bad as I thought it was going to be but it's still not that good.

Acting wise, everyone was doing alright. Keri Russell was easily the best of the bunch with a believable performance. The others were passable except for the kid that played Jesse's "friend." I could not stand this kid being on screen or in the movie for that matter.

He was extremely annoying and was only put in there to apply to a younger audience. I just felt that the movie could have rolled smoother without him in the picture because that way I wouldn't want to pull my hair out.

The script in this film is pretty generic as far as sci-fi films go. It's quite clear that the director was trying to do something different, but it just didn't work with bad lines of dialogue and some REALLY funny looking faces.

The moment I was just done with the film was when the family was ready for the final showdown with the aliens because it was a direct rip off of Signs by M. Night Shymalan. I had already seen most of what happened in this film before when it was done better and was actually original.

I didn't really care for the ending at all. It was completely predictable and, once again, I've seen it before. As for the aliens, they looked HORRIBLE, even for CGI standards. It looked like someone just made a gray stick figure and added a few details just to make it passable, but it just didn't work.

Don't waste your time with Dark Skies. It's not a horrible film by any means, but it's something that we've already seen so many times before.