When a foster home placed teenage rebel suspects that her father is not dead but kidnapped by UFOs, she takes help from a UFO association to find out the truth. Together, they embark on a risky adv...
Once I found out that the Swedish film UFO Sweden — redubbed and rebranded as “Watch The Skies” here in the states — used an AI visual dubbing tool to sync new (in this case, English language) dialogue with the actors’ mouth movements, I could just feel my brow furrowing both out of curiosity and sheer annoyance for something that wasn’t necessary.
That being said, I can’t pretend this wasn’t half-bad.
Yet another adventure movie whose DNA and roadmap is carved in the familiar Spielbergian lane as ‘The Legend of Ochi’, the derivative blueprint and familiar mold is easy to see coming from a mile away. Despite also being loosely based on an identical association whose moniker also inspired a documentary that director Victor Danell watched, the story isn’t shy about where it takes its inspirations from, weaponizing and parading its nostalgic, adventure-centric genealogy from years past like a badge of honor for a modernized throwback that clearly wants to be all heart. Essentially a greatest hits medley acting as a battering instrument, it proudly wears its influences on its sleeve but never quite lets you forget that it’s wearing them, like each beat was been selected for specifically to echo in this empty chamber of the contemporary moment….while also being heavily indicative of and reliant on the characters being able to shoulder the weight of and carry that inherent pathos through to the end.
What happens is a lot of spewed exposition and computer hacking technobabble that starts off interesting but slowly grows more monotonous. Regardless, it still makes for an affectionate enough tribute to the kind of grassroots investigation that rarely gets the spotlight and for a story where the audience are kept in the dark most of the time, it captures and capitalizes on whatever modicums of intrigue it can to draw us in.
Our main theme — besides the typical preconceptions of loss, responsibility, found families, challenging perceptions, the dangers of cultish thinking, letting hope metastasize into delusion and conspiratorial ramblings and the lengths some will go to achieve it — boils down to obsession and the importance of rejecting the isolating nature of sacrificial solo discovery for the inclusiveness of genuine relationship building. The script litters us with characters who orbit each other’s pain, sometimes colliding in moments of vulnerability, more often ricocheting away in confusion or denial. Sometimes it’s really subtle and subdued, other times it has to be spelled out to the peanut gallery but all of these fundamental concepts feel underdeveloped and act more like crutches; they’re present, flickering at the edges but awkwardly thrusting to the fore in moments that feel like they were hastily inserted during a rewrite and they never quite cohere. Even when the film gradually pushes those conflicts into a position where Denise finally accepts and makes peace with the cost of her journey, the resolution is so diluted and inauthentic that I can almost mistake it for being rushed.
Gesturing toward subtlety only to stick closely to pathos, it’s more or less a scaffolding for perfunctory theatrics.
Then of course, there’s the bloody A.I debacle. On one hand, they avoided an uproar by not replacing the actors with A.I, PERIOD….but am I the only one still annoyed at the voice dubbing? Why couldn’t y’all just release the film in your own native language? I understand wanting to reach out to a more diverse mainstream audience group overseas….but did it absolutely HAVE to be like this? Look, the actual dubbing itself is mixed well enough to where it’ll hardly stand out to the average viewer but I could tell the redubbing varies from performer to performer, with some inherently being more legible in English than others and once you notice it, that subtlety wears off quickly.
Overwrought is the best I can describe Victor Danell’s direction here. His efforts to imitate the golden age of the late 20th century adventure story is nothing short of admirable and he harbors a genuine curiosity behind the scientific nature of the unknown, lingering on technical equipment with almost fetishistic detail; it’s just a shame how often he telegraphs the well-worn path when his directions at its most captivating when he commits to the unknown.
Rasmus Rasmark’s production design just present enough to anchor the narrative’s more bizarre or outlandish turns, but never so ornamental as to crowd the space or smother the viewer’s own interpretive faculties; not too obtuse that you can’t use your imagination….nor overly astute to achieve the full parameters of the story it wants to have. Almost a utilitarian tidiness to the spaces, its this restrained lack of heavy-handedness that makes the environment feel lived in and alive but even as the plot demands more wink-wink, overt touches of the uncanny, the set design doesn’t evolve with it to take on more expressionistic qualities.
Thankfully, Hannes Krantz does better in easing into the visual grammar of the late twentieth century. His cinematography doesn’t go all in on the ‘90’s aesthetics but his mix of modern polish and retro sensibilities makes his camerawork semi-kinetic but always purposeful with a beautiful color dichotomy between orange-red glowing and mysterious, cold blue-black becoming a recurring visual motif. The lighting unfortunately stays evocatively hazy throughout and the almost autumnal hue here doesn’t completely offset the fantastical, picturesque backdrop it requires for the setting but it still looks the part and Fredrik Morheden’s editing helps make the film look much better than it otherwise would.
Sad to say the costumes don’t routinely stand out, the pacing makes the best of a digestible runtime with a consistent rhythm and manageable speed while the tone steadfastly avoids feeling too jarring. It isn’t completely saccharine but is otherwise so heavily reliant on the Amblin-style faux-soulfulness, it can often border on cloying. Oskar Sollenberg and Gustaf Spetz’s atmospheric Stranger Things inspired musical score pulses with nostalgic synth arpeggios and reverb-drenched melodies that feel wistful and haunting, sound design is a mixed bag of tricks that never quite coheres and it goes without saying: all of the visual effects are very easy on the eyes, carrying a hint of “Close Encounters” polish, but on a “Safety Not Guaranteed” budget.
MMPA rating is a very loose PG-13 but nevertheless convincing.
Bloody A.I face and line-dubbing aside, the acting and character work (or lack thereof) is probably what sealed the deal for me. Many of the performances are hampered by semi-wooden dialogue exchanges while the characters themselves remain thinly sketched outlines—defined only by technical jargon and constant coffee jabs. Glimpses of authentic connection occasionally surface as their personalities extend beyond being just comic relief or conspiracy cranks, but they're quickly submerged beneath another wave of exposition or too sparse to leave an impact. Inez Dahl Torhaug suffers the most from this narrative vacuum; her character Denise possesses all the familiar architecture of the sheltered, moody protagonist destined for an emotional breakthrough but between her character being a consistent hard-ass willing to sacrifice the safety of others for her own needs and her acting feeling stilted trying to carry the entire film on her shoulder, it’s really difficult to root for her.
I’m aware that’s meant to be the point, as it ties into her indomitable spirit and inability to surrender but the point is the way she and everyone else is written never allows them to organically develop with anyone and evolve especially when the moment directly calls for that pathos.
If I could label ambitious misfire to any film this year, "Watch the Skies" is one of the first that’ll come to mind. An enthusiastic but ultimately imprecise effort that was dragged down by its own lofty ambitions, there’s only so much a beating heart and zealous imagination can take a derivative blueprint and uneven execution. I really wanted to like this.
