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Dark Skies follows the Barrett family, whose peaceful suburban life is turned upside down by a series of mysterious events that defy conventional explanation, leading them to discover that a “terrifying and deadly force” (aliens) is after them.
Let me reiterate, the posters and trailers for the film don’t hide the fact that the film is about aliens, you can figure it out just by looking at the title and the fact that most of the clips in the TV spots come from the third act of the movie.
However, the structure of the film acts as if the audience has never heard of aliens before, which is a concept that can work, but isn’t executed properly in this film
Instead, the first act is filled with long, boring build-up that feels like it’s trying to develop the characters, but doesn’t even accomplish that. Couple that with the fact we’re given characters, but we’re not given enough development to really know them nor are we given enough focus to care about them.
This is especially applicable when you get to the film’s plot twist, which I won’t spoil. To make it short, the plot twist comes from so far out of left field to the point where the film literally tries to do damage control during the resolution, as if even the writers realized that it didn’t make sense if they didn’t spell it out for the audience.
Speaking of sudden plot twists, the film also takes cues from M. Night Shyamalan by ripping off both Signs and The Happening to the point where it feels like they literally lifted scenes from the two films when writing the script. The film also takes elements from Paranormal Activity, complete with infrared cameras.
The only thing I can give the film credit for is that the third act climax of the film is executed really well, it builds up the suspense visually and is paced really well for a action-packed horror scene
However, it’s not worth sitting through all of the build-up that constantly tap-dances around information the audience has already figured out. It’s also what makes the plot twist at the end so enraging because of how the film built it up over the course of it’s run time.
If you haven’t guessed by now, I did not like this movie. It takes too long to build-up the suspense and doesn’t even give us enough development or time to get emotionally invested.
Even when it does get to the well crafted suspense scene, it kills it by introducing a plot twist that makes no sense in the overall scope of the story. You’re better off watching the UFO episodes of Unsolved Mysteries.
On my personal scale, I give Dark Skies a 2/5.
