Watch the Skies

Relying on a familiar mold isn’t necessarily a dealbreaker. It just requires characters that can conjure the inherent pathos such films engender. Unfortunately, “Watch the Skies” struggles on that front.

There’s a joy and sincerity to UFO Sweden that is infectious, a charming little film with enormous spirit.

It’s a film meant for the big screen and hopefully with its slight augmentation will reach a much wider and enthusiastic audience.

Ideal for die-hard nostalgics and fans of light science fiction, Watch the Skies works better as a visual curiosity than an emotionally resonant work. [Full review in Spanish]

Looking backward and forward, this 2022 Swedish picture is a throwback to family-friendly action movies of the 1980s, but revamped for English-speaking viewers with modern dubbing technology. Unhappily it doesn’t escape mediocrity in either respect.

More notable for its use of AI to create illusion that the dubbed characters are speaking English than for its alien abduction plot or drama.

It makes you believe not just in aliens, but in people, connection, and maybe even new ways of telling the same old stories. If the skies are watching us back, I only hope they’re into Swedish cinema.

An AI-assisted Swedish film lacks heart, soul, originality and pretty much everything else.


It is an overall good movie about found family, otherness, and the hunt to find the truth. However, there is a tainted feeling when viewing the obvious alteration of the actor’s facial expressions for the characters to speak English.

Tech aside, director Victor Danell has crafted a pretty interesting and audacious sci-fi adventure about UFOs.