Skylines (film)

Skylines
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Liam O'Donnell
Screenplay by	Liam O'Donnell
Story by	Matthew E. Chausse Liam O'Donnell
Based on	Characters by Joshua Cordes Liam O'Donnell
Produced by	Liam O'Donnell Greg Strause Colin Strause Matthew E. Chausse
Starring	Lindsey Morgan Jonathan Howard Daniel Bernhardt Rhona Mitra James Cosmo Alexander Siddig
Cinematography	Alain Duplantier
Edited by	Barrett Heathcote
Music by	Ram Khatabakhsh
Production companies	Hydraulx Entertainment Liam O'Donnell Films XYZ Films m45 Productions Gifflar Films Limited Gifflar (Patriot) Films Limited UAB Cobaltas Lipsync Productions LLP Artbox Fasten Films
Distributed by	Vertical Entertainment
Release date	October 25, 2020 (2020-10-25) (FrightFest) December 18, 2020 (2020-12-18) (United States)
Running time	110 minutes[1]
Country	United States
Language	English
Box office	$69,808

Skylines (stylized as SKYLIN3S, and also known as Skyline 3)^[2][3] is a 2020 American science fiction action film co-produced and directed by Liam O'Donnell which he wrote from a story he co-developed with producer Matthew E. Chausse. It is a sequel to Beyond Skyline (2017), and the third overall in the Skyline film series.

The film premiered at the London FrightFest Film Festival on October 25, 2020,^[4] and was released on December 18, 2020, in the United States in theaters and on Apple TV by Vertical Entertainment^[5] (all during the COVID-19 pandemic).

Plot[]

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Picking up shortly after the previous film, Rose leads the human spaceship fleet against the alien spaceship fleet. The aliens, called 'Harvesters', are on board the mother ship, called Armada, in orbit of the Moon. However, after breaking through the enemy lines, Rose freezes before she can fire and one of her ships is destroyed. With the Armada preparing to fire on Earth, Rose is forced to destroy one of her own ships when it gets into the crossfire, sacrificing thousands of her own men, but she succeeds in destroying the Armada. Wracked with guilt, Rose vanishes following the battle while humanity rebuilds over the next five years, living alongside billions of freed alien-human hybrids called 'Pilots'.

Five years after the battle, Rose lives in a tent city near the ruins of London, avoiding resistance forces led by Leon searching for her and keeping the aging effects of her hybrid nature at bay with the help of hyper-oxygenated blood transfusions prepared for Rose by her friend Dr. Mal. A viral pandemic strikes the Pilots and anyone using transplanted Pilot limbs such as Huana who lost both of his arms and a leg while fighting against the aliens fifteen years before. The virus eats the Pilots alive while reverting them back into their brainwashed state. Leon captures Rose and brings her before General Radford who reveals that the Armada's core drive warped to the Harvester homeworld, named Cobalt One, moments before Rose destroyed the ship. Only with the Armada's core drive do they have a chance of saving the Pilots. After being reunited with her Pilot adoptive brother Trent, Rose reluctantly agrees to join the mission.

At Cobalt One, the team's ship crashes after a collision with an empty Harvester vessel that leaves the ship running on emergency power. The crew of Rose, Trent, Leon, Owens and Alexi find the planet filled with the bodies of dead Harvesters and strange shadow creatures that appear to be mutations of the Harvesters. Alexi is heavily wounded and sacrifices herself with a pulse grenade to kill the creatures, but the team manages to reach the Armada where Rose is briefly possessed by the Matriarch, the Harvester leader who accuses the humans of coming to destroy her species. Trent helps Rose to break free of the Matriarch's control and Rose realizes that the Matriarch's telepathic influence was what caused her to freeze and her problems with her powers since. Now no longer afraid of who she is, Rose embraces her powers and steals the core drive. However, Owens betrays the others, infects Trent with the virus and flees with the core drive.

Stealing an alien tanker in order to escape, Rose and Leon discover that Radford had bombed Cobalt One prior to their arrival with a biological weapon, the same virus that is infecting the Pilots on Earth. As Rose and Leon make their way back aboard the ship, Radford uses the core drive to destroy Cobalt One and the Harvesters in an act of genocide. Confronted by Rose and Leon, Radford reveals that the virus was intended to peacefully euthanize the Pilots and to destroy the Harvesters, but it had the unintended side effect of reverting the Pilots back into their brainwashed state. Having boarded the ship as well, the Matriarch attacks, killing Radford and intending to destroy the Earth in revenge. Owens who is being checked on by Zhi, attempts to attack Zhi after he realizes the truth about the virus, but Zhi manages to fight off Owens who attacks Leon and Rose. As the ship enters a wormhole, Owens falls into an energy field and is disintegrated while Trent, whom Leon manages to snap back to normal, knocks the Matriarch in as well, but has most of his body disintegrated in the process.

On Earth, Mal works on a cure in the tent city, but the infected Pilots attack before she can finish testing it. The residents, including Mal, Kate, Grant and a cured Huana, fight back and manage to eliminate the attacking Pilots at the cost of Grant and several others, only to have an army of thousands more approach from London. Arriving back in the nick of time, Rose sucks all of the Pilots into her ship and informs Mal that with Mal's cure and Rose's ship, they now have the power to cure all of the infected Pilots worldwide.

In the aftermath, Mal transplants Trent's brain into a new Pilot body, saving him. Zhi hacks into Radford's personal files and discovers the location of a prison where Radford held anyone that he considered to be an enemy of the state, including Rose and Trent's long-missing father Mark Corley. Rose orders a course set for the prison, intending to rescue her adoptive father.

Cast[]

• Lindsey Morgan as Rose Corley, a super-powered captain of the survivors and daughter of the late Jarrod and Elaine.
• Jonathan Howard as Leon
• Daniel Bernhardt as Owens
• Rhona Mitra as Dr. Mal
• James Cosmo as Grant
• Alexander Siddig as General Radford
• Yayan Ruhian as Huana
• Ieva Andrejevaite as Alexi
• Samantha Jean as Elaine
• Jeremy Fitzgerald as Trent Corley
• Giedre Mockeliunaite as Izzy
• Cha-Lee Yoon as Zhi
• Phong Giang as the Matriarch, the supreme ruler of the Harvesters and the one behind the events of the previous 2 films.
• Naomi Tankel as Kate

Reception[]

Box office[]

The film opened theatrically in Vietnam on December 11, and grossed $49,978 from 960 theaters in its opening weekend, ranking fifth with an average of $52 per theater.^[6] The film was pulled from 915 theaters in its sophomore weekend, ranking eighth with $972 and a decrease of 98.1%.^[7]

Critical response[]

Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a 52% approval rating based on 25 reviews, with an average rating of 5.4/10.^[1] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 46 out of 100, based on 4 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".^[8]

Future[]

In December 2020, writer/director O'Donnell announced plans to continue the series, with intentions to bring back the principle cast.^[9] That same month, Frank Grillo expressed interest in reprising his role in the series.^[10]

References[]

External links[]

• https://realmovieclub.com/movie/skylines-2020/
• Skylines at IMDb
• Skylines at AllMovie