‘Fighting The Sky’ Review
Stars: Angela Cole, Roger Conners, Jinette Faraj, Judith A. Faraj, Alison Headrick, Matthew Ward, Nicole Ann Hicks, Logan Roberts, Larry Cahill, Brianna Burke, Joe Gotschall, Bailey Weaver, Theresa Wylie, Ed Conrad, Sean Keta | Written by David Matthew Cummings, Conrad Faraj, Roger Jones | Directed by Conrad Faraj
Fighting The Sky got my interest through what I thought was a great-looking poster (not the one used for this release – check the original poster out on IMDb!). Sometimes it is something as simple as that to make me watch a movie and, as expected, it’s pretty much 50/50 on whether the film is good or not.
In Fighting The Sky we follow two groups of people, one a young teenagers/children group, the other a group of adults, who are both slowly discovering that someone or something is here to invade Earth from the sky, until eventually both their world’s interact. I didn’t actually expect a alien invasion movie but that’s exactly what we get here…
Although there’s strangely a whole host of sub genres blended into one movie.
Initially we just get noises in the air and no real sighthings. Actually, one of the things Fighting The Sky does right is not showing the aliens from beginning to end. It takes a while before we see the creatures and we only see them more frequently in the final third of the movie. It’s the right choice to make. I feel like the film-makers probably watched M. Night Shylaman’s Signs just before writing and making the film because there’s quite a few similarities between the two, though not enough to be called a rip-off… Though if you’re going to be influenced by similar movies, you better make it the good ones!
Apart from alien invasion with have scenes that play out like a ghost-hunting movie, a bit of a coming of age angle with the younger characters and once the aliens land, a home invasion is the style that the director chooses to go with. And once again, it’s actually a good choice for the main part.
Unfortunately a major problem with Fighting The Sky is the script. The dialogue in particular is pretty awful. The actors try their best, and like many similar low-budget movies, the performances very much range from kinda bad to decent enough. And as usual with many genre movies, some of the characters make some ridiculous and unrealistic choices. There’s also one character in particular who is just so unlikeable. Which is fine, he is meant to be (I’m pretty sure) but he floats in and out of the main story for no real reason so I was hoping it was just because he would get killed off in a really nasty way. But unfortunately, for me at least, this was not the case.
There’s a mix of CGI and practical effects in Fighting The Sky. Practical is used for the creatures themselves and while it is basically just a person in a suit, I think it actually worked quite well, with the aliens coming across quite creepy. The CGI is used for the UFO’s and explosions and green lights and lots of other things (including the creatures tongues!). It’s cheap, yet looks okay when it’s on screen for a short time and when there’s not too much on screen, however when it’s all plastered all over the screen it becomes a bit of a mess.
I actually think Fighting The Sky has some good ideas, I’m not giving away anything by mentioning it has a time travel element, which I liked but anything positive is counteracted by a negative, leaving a pretty mediocre sci-fi movie.
Fighting The Sky invades digital and DVD on February 5th, courtesy of High octane Pictures.
