Saturday, February 23, 2013

Open Your Mouth and Close Your Eyes, and You Will Get Dark Skies



As you can see above, there’s a hell of a lot of jaw-dropping in Dark Skies. The human-abducting aliens, called “The Grays” in this film, just cause jaw-dropping terror, or they want the humans to open wide and say “Ah” so they can examine human teeth. Why the aliens require decades to “study” humans is beyond me. They can travel through space at light speed but I guess they’re kind of slow when it comes to research.

Yes, most of Dark Skies plays like its preview: a display of poor acting and cheesy suspense elements that rip off Close Encounters of the Third Kind and The Birds and bring the movie very very close to being one of those recent Paranormal Activity spoofs. (There's even the ubiquitous kitchen moment involving pots and pans!) Keri Russell as the Mom and Josh Hamilton as the Dad try hard to look concerned and fearful about the possibilities of aliens abducting their kids, but for the most part they look like that haven’t gotten enough sleep. Though his appearance in the preview elicits a laugh, J. K. Simmons as an alien-abduction theorist provides the first little spurts of a creepy tone, and when the final alien invasion of the Barrett residence comes, rather entertaining chills, suspense, and a nice plot twist are finally provided.

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