Watch the Skies
When a farmer reports a glowing red phenomenon in the sky followed by a red Saab 90 crashing through the roof of his barn, sixteen year-old Denise (Inez Dahl Torhaug) is convinced that it is her father Uno's (Oscar Töringe) car, her father having disappeared eight years earlier after telling the young girl he'd pinpointed the location of a UFO. Dodging local policewoman Tomi (Sara Shirpey), Denise sneaks into the barn and verifies it is his car when she finds a tape of 'Forever Young,' the last thing she heard as he drove away, in the cassette player. Excited by her discovery, Denise takes his old calculations and her new findings to the group he used to lead, UFO Sweden, telling them she believes he is still alive in "Watch the Skies."
Laura's Review: B-
This 2022 Swedish film is being released in U.S. theaters as the first feature to use Flawless's Truesync AI dubbing process, which not only provides translation, but syncs the actors' lips to the new language. While I wouldn't want to see art house cinema and known actors manipulated in this way, the technology is undeniably slick and will make genre films, like this science fiction adventure tale, easier to go down for many. As "Watch the Skies" still takes place in Sweden and features an amateur group known as UFO-Sweden, the English language version is delivered with Swedish accents.
The film is a fun romp for fans of conspiracy theories, science, evil corporations outwitted by the little guy and chosen families. Denise, who now lives with (barely seen) foster parents, has a young female cop looking out for her, but their relationship is left naggingly vague. In a prologue, we see the eight year-old Denise (Lilly Lexfors) in the back seat of that Saab, her father taking a pile of binders through the window from the lab-coated Lennart Svahn (Jesper Barkselius, "The Unthinkable"), an SMHI employee who tries to take them back when he realizes they've been spotted. Uno gets away under cover of his fellow UFO association, Töna (Isabelle Kyed), Mats (Mathias Lithner) and Karl (Niklas Kvarnbo Jönsson), who swerve to pick up Gunnar (Håkan Ehn), their senior member who's been shot in the leg by SMHI security.
Eight years later, Lennart, who lost his big corporate physicist gig, now runs UFO-Sweden, which investigates reports of UFOs when it isn't arguing about coffee and meeting protocols. When Denise walks in, Lennart is stunned. 'Sputnik?' he asks, using Uno's pet name for his daughter. They are all agog listening to her describe her dad's car and decide to head into the area he disappeared in, only Gunnar appearing skeptical. While they don't find a spaceship, they do find a fenced off area holding a large SMHI computer Denise identifies as a CT-8, but while she slips in to retrieve its hard drive, SMHI officials, including head of research Kicki (Eva Melander, "Border") appear, causing them to flee just as a mysterious object lights up the sky, a red formation appearing overhead. Meanwhile, Kicki, who Lennart believes is using his research to beat UFO-Sweden to the punch, is evasive with Tomi until the cop calls her out and a deal is struck - if Tomi can retrieve the hard drive, Kicki will tell her the truth about what's going on in the forest.
Cowriter (with Jimmy Nivrén Olsson)/director Victor Danell of the Crazy Pictures film collaborative have gathered many cast members from their first feature, "The Unthinkable," and the rebellious teenager and oddball UFO investigators (based on a real amateur Swedish group) are a likable bunch to root for. The script follows a familiar narrative, Denise gaining the group's trust, then losing it, then regaining it as one of their own turns against them and help comes from an unexpected channel. Familiar tropes like blackouts, gravitational shifts and odd disappearances inform the mystery, but those hoping for UFOs and aliens may well be disappointed, as the film shifts into other outer space phenomena as Denise, looking for her father, finds an unexpected one. Action scenes, like an extended car chase, and a scene where the group dredges a lake for spaceship are well executed, the filmmakers relying more on practical effects over the fancy technology they've used for their dub.
Robin's Review: B-
Brilliant young hacker, Denise (Inez Dahl Torhaug), believes her long-missing dad was abducted by aliens. She decides to join a kooky UFO club to try to find the answers and the dad she has been searching for in “Watch the Skies.”
This goofy take on the UFO culture, by director-cowriter (Victor Danell), with co-scribe Jimmy Nivren Olsson, begins with Denise leading a break-in hack at a hi-tech company. Then, a dairy farmer tends his cows and, suddenly, all the lights exploded and a red car comes crashing into the barn from the sky.
We learn of the young woman losing her dad when he, and his car, disappeared from the face of the earth. Denise is sure the car in the barn belonged to her father and seeks the help of UFO Sweden and its wacky members who know “there is something out there!”
What follows keeps pace with the movie’s silly good-nature as Denise and her new friends and believers work to unravel the mystery of the missing dad. The filmmakers get all science-fictiony as, in her quest to find her father and we are introduced to science-fact as a black hole comes in to play.
We are not here to debate the existence of UFOs. That existence is pretty well defined by “Watch the Skies” as it wears its believer’s heart on its sleeve. The acting is solid in a humorous way and the story, while it starts to spin out of control in the end as it uses up its special F/X budget in the finale, has its heart in the right place.
XYZ Films releases "Watch the Skies" in theaters on 5/9/25.
