Fromage Fridays #35: Battle for Skyark

In the theaters and in your living room, it’s a YA invasion.

January is in full effect and “The 5^th Wave,” starring Chloe Moretz, makes its attempt to take the newly vacated throne of Young Adult cinematic influence left by the recently wrapped up “Hunger Games.”

But why spend $10 at the theater fighting crowds for a derivative experience of children getting killed in stupid and ludicrous scenarios when you can spend less than $4 for a derivative experience of children getting killed in stupid and ludicrous scenarios on your own couch. At least you’d be getting your money’s worth.

“Battle for Skyark” features all the elements that the teenie boppers of today love in their sci-fi action features; the outcast of society (here called “Rags”) with some sort of special feature (the son of a military traitor) becoming the savior of children left to fend for themselves without adult supervision against “monsters.”

Not that it needed the formula, because the only thing that you’ll actually remember about this bore is that its embarrassingly laughable acting isn’t enough to distract from how lifeless the production feels.

“Battle for Skyark” is an hour and a half long but is so terribly acted, so cheap, and so boring that it feels like it should have been over a half hour shorter.

Across every second of the amateurish storytelling that kicks in the second the opening credits roll, beginning with an exposition dump about Skyark being some sort of flying paradise built to escape “monsters” on earth and transitioning to Rags running to cover in medias res with the other kids and immediately being flirted with by the designated love interest, never spending more than 25 seconds with the characters that the spare no time killing off, I couldn’t help but shake the feeling that this movie was made by somebody in the same age bracket as this flick’s cast and target demographic.

There’s nothing wrong with simplicity in story or escapism in the name of fun but the bare bones writing of the game comes off as a 13 year old’s first attempt at fiction, with no concept of character driven plot or showing instead of telling to be seen.

All in all, a dull and worthless watch that isn’t necessarily painful but I came across a rather unnerving revelation the more I mulled it over in regards to the nature of YA stories in general.

For all of the problems of “Battle for Skyark’s” formulas at play, I really got to thinking what makes this so much worse than dry dreck like “Divergent” or “The Maze Runner.” The conclusion I reached was not a pleasant one; money.

Despite featuring mildly superior writing, I can’t in good conscience call the storytelling of those films much better than anything seen here. What I can observe however, is that those films have tens of millions of dollars to sink into set design, CGI effects, and good actors to polish the weak material that they’re working with.

“Battle for Skyark” lacks the money to cover up just how bad it is and in doing so, sheds some light on the troubling present of the film’s it’s attempting to rip off. About the only thing I can commend it for is honesty.

½ Shatner out of 4

Bottom Line: "Battle for Skyark" has the misfortune of embarrasing not only itself, but its entire genre.