“Skylines” wants what Michael Bay, Paul W.S. Anderson, and other directors of their caliber have. To create B-movie magic, because the “B” now stands for “blockbuster,” with the VFX-heavy spectacle of fighting aliens and flying ships through space. Every bit of this movie yearns to be on the same proverbial shelf as something like Bay “Transformers” or Anderson’s “Resident Evil” films, but it doesn’t do enough to carve out its own space. An alien planet shouldn’t look this rote; same goes with the life-or-death action that happens on it.
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But what director Liam O’Donnell has that those genre juggernauts don’t is a bigger sense of humor. Specifically, outtakes after the credits. For all the strait-laced generic sci-fi plotting that unfolds in the previous 105 minutes of “Skylines,” it’s the images of costumes falling apart, green-screen sets, and miffed fight choreography at the end that show how to best receive this movie: a can-do passion project that wants to honor VFX artists as the real heroes (O’Donnell is credited as a VFX supervisor). But when it comes to its own story, well, that’s a far less charismatic pull.