'Beyond Skyline' Is a Massive Improvement of Its Predecessor

Beyond Skyline is the sequel to the mediocre and forgettable 2010 alien abduction film Skyline.  It is set during and after the events of the first film, and centers on Detective Mark Corley (Frank Grillo) who attempts to lead a band of survivors to safety, including his son Trent (Jonny Weston) and transit worker Audrey (Bojana Novakovica), after Los Angeles is trashed by an alien invasion and its populate harvested.  Unfortunately, they are soon abducted as well, but their continued struggle leads to the ship crashing on a Southeast Asian rainforest.  There, they must team up with a local underground resistance and figure out how to beat the alien invaders once and for all.

This film isn’t exactly mindblowingly good, but it’s definitely much better than its predecessor.  It tremendously improves whatever Skyline has set up.  In a lot of ways, though it’s a sequel, it feels more of a reboot, as it approaches the entire premise in a fundamentally different style.

Well, the first half is a bit boring, but once the second half kicks in – when the setting shifts to Southeast Asia – it becomes kind of awesome.  

While Skyline can be identified as a science fiction thriller, Beyond Skyline is a science fiction action thriller.  And that one additional word really makes a world of difference for this film.  It has a couple of legitimately exciting set pieces involving kaiju battles and martial arts choreography.

Iko Uwais and Yayan Ruhian, stars of The Raid films, have parts in this movie requiring them to fight the aliens in close combat.  And if you have seen The Raid films, you can just imagine how thrilling that must be.

The story is nothing special.  It has no real depth, has a couple of dumb and cheesy elements, and has an unpolished feel.  But it also has a few cool ideas sprinkled here and there.

And I like how the film leaves things off.  It’s honestly one of the most intriguing “human counter-attack of an alien invasion” setup I’ve ever encountered in science fiction.  I’m almost convinced that this warrants a third installment so that it can be explored further.

Beyond Skyline is generally entertaining.  Though it may require effort to go through some tedious stuff, it does ultimately reward with a decently kickass climax and conclusion.