WATCH THE SKIES

4 stars

Signature Entertainment. Initially exclusive to Showcase. 11th July

WATCH THE SKIES is a fun, throwback science fiction adventure from Sweden, which was originally titled UFO SWEDEN and is the first film to fully utilise a new technology, from British film company Flawless AI, which is being called ‘vubbing’. More on that in a bit.

With a touch of ‘Stranger Things’, a dash of ‘The X-Files’, the film evokes the feel of Spielberg’s Amblin’ productions, it stars Inez Dahl Torhaug as Denise, a bit of a wayward teen – understandable perhaps as her father Uno (Oscar Toringe) ran the local UFO spotters club and went missing some years back in the mountains. She still hangs on to the belief he is still alive and has been abducted, by aliens of course. Inevitably no one believes her, including local cop Tomi (Sara Shipey) who has befriended her and looks out for the youngster.

One night a glow is seen in the sky and a red car, the same as the one her dad was driving when he disappeared, crashes through a nearby barn. Denise is convinced this proves he is still alive – so she teams up with the nerdy members of the club her father used to run to investigate. It is now headed by Lennart (Jesper Barkselius), who used to work for the government. Can the troubled teen use her hacking skills and the collective to prove the existence of alien life visiting Earth, and hopefully be reunited with her dad?

Torhaug makes for an engaging and appealing lead, and the script by Victor Danell and Jivren builds the thrills as it twists and turns. Danell also helmed (under the name Crazy Pictures – a filmmaking collective) and has created an exciting and compelling sf thriller.

Now about that tech – using an AI based software, and utilising the original actors to redo their dialogue in English, their mouth movements have been manipulated so they match their speech… rather than the normal thing with dubbing where they are often wildly out of sync. Is it completely successful? Not entirely, as you are kind of aware of it at the start (perhaps because I knew it had been used so you tend to look more closely). Thankfully, the film draws you in enough for you to forget it – and one assumes it can only improve with time. If it is a way of opening up foreign films to a wider audience, it is to be applauded, though personally I have always been okay with watching subtitled films, over badly dubbed productions, though I know many avoid them. At least in this case they are using the original actors to re-voice – which means they can echo their performances from when it was shot.

Steve Kirkham