Review for Skyline

Skyline has the tagline 'Don't look up', it probably should say 'Don't watch this.' I can't figure out whether this is a homage to sci-fi or the most unoriginal film I have ever seen. I could literally go through the film and pick out the films the creators ripped off. Ready? Jarrod and Elaine are in LA to visit Jarrod's friend Terry for his birthday, after the party it is disrupted (Cloverfield), by a huge alien craft that has just turned up over the city (Independence Day) that is abducting people with a bright light (Close Encounters of the Third Kind) and later on via robot drones that use them as energy (The Matrix). Jarrod and Elaine try and get away, but discover that the aliens are not just randomiy abducting people, but actually hunting down and annihilated all the humans in LA (The War of the Worlds). You can add some dashes of Transformers, District 9 and Invasion of the Bodysnatchers for good measure too.
Words cannot describe how disappointing this film was, but considering the best and scariest part is in the trailer then it's my own fault for expecting anything less than a poorly constructed movie. I was trying to figure out what it was that was wrong and it's not just the awful ending that screams SEQUEL at us, a sequel that I wouldn't want to watch, but it wasn't until I rewatched Independence Day that I figured out what was wrong. There's simply no interest in the characters. Jarrod, Elaine and Terry are just not interesting enough and whereas with Independence Day (Not a flawless film before anyone says anything) if you begin to tire with the Will Smith character, it shifts to the Bill Pullman, then Randy Quaid and Jeff Goldblum and so on. Instead we are stuck with these characters and when we get some exciting scenes of the army attacking the alien crafts we don't see the reasoning behind it and when they reveal that they have been nuked we have had none of the turmoil over the wider consequences of what that would mean.
Though the effects are fine for what they are, effects cannot make a film great or even in this film good. The acting is awful and it almost feels like one of those made for TV films that SyFy produce. The plot is badly developed with no character progression and no thing to invest yourself into. As I said before, the best and scariest part of the film is actually in the trailer and so if you want to save yourself the time just watch that and you'll have seen the best part. As for the ending? I can't quite figure out if this was just obviously to lead in to the sequel or one of the writers had just watched District 9 a few too many times.
The DVD comes with two commentaries that I really struggled to get through and it is because listening you would think they were talking about a critically acclaimed Oscar-winning triumph and not a film that (other than the effects) is average in every way. All that I learnt was that the film was intended as the first of a series and if that is the case then surely they could have spent some time developing characters, idea or even just reveal who the aliens where, where are they from and what they want. Also included is a number of deleted and extended scenes which do nothing to improve the film.
Skyline could have been a great alien invasion film, instead it just revealed itself to be a rip off of every alien/sci-fi film that has ever been made and one I certainly won't be looking at again.