A rebellious teenager who believes her missing father was abducted by aliens joins forces with a quirky UFO club of endearing misfits. They embark on a high-stakes adventure that defies the law and challenges the very fabric of reality. (from IMDb)

When you think of classic alien movies - not the gruesome ones, but the ones that find us looking to the sky, wondering if we're alone - titles like Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T. and maybe even Super 8 come to mind. I remember seeing an interesting preview before another movie in the theater a few years ago, that seemed to capture this vibe, but it appeared to be a foreign film. Sadly, despite it looking worth checking into, I'm not sure I heard about the film again. Color me surprised, then, when a Blu-Ray copy of the 2022 film showed up on our doorstep.

Watch the Skies is actually a foreign film (Its original title is UFO Sweden). It was produced in Sweden and made entirely in the Swedish language... at least, so I thought. I found myself surprised yet again when I popped the Blu-Ray in and discovered that the language spoken was actually English. While their lips matched the English lines coming out of their mouths, it sounded as if their voices were dubbed still. Perhaps they dubbed them because their Swedish accents had been too thick and it was tough to make out their English? I really wasn't sure how this was.

After watching the movie, I looked up some info on it and was shocked to discover that Watch the Skies is the first time new technlogy had been implemented using AI to animate the actors' mouths to fit the English overdubbing. Yeah. Read that again. The actors in Watch the Skies originally did speak Swedish, but with the use of state-of-the-art AI technology, their mouths were made to match the English overdubs. Honestly? It's pretty impressive.

In the special features on the disc, you actually can choose to watch the original cut of the film that has the actors speaking their native tongue, with English subtitles running at the bottom of the screen. I checked this out and then went back to see the AI-tweaked English update. The original edit DOES feel more natural, but this AI-enhanced version is really intriguing. Purists will want to watch the Swedish version, but for those not excited about having to read the entire film, you can sit back and just enjoy watching the movie instead of having to stay focused on reading the lines the entire time.

Furthermore, I was really impressed with this Blu-Ray transfer. It's super crisp and the color is crazy vibrant. It almost feels like a 4K transfer. When I peeked at the original Swedish language version, I did notice that everything felt a tad duller. If I had to guess, I'd say the process to enhance the lips-matching probably also enhanced the visuals at the same time, too.

With all that said, I was genuinely impressed with Watch The Skies. It feels like it has the budget of a major studio, and it has pretty decent performances throughout. I wouldn't say they're perfect (and maybe some if them are compromised by the abnormal line delivery, thanks to the use of AI), but several of the performances really stand out. Inez Dahl Torhaug as teenage Denise, and Jesper Barkselius as Lennart, really help elevate this movie. There are some quirky characters mixed in - like Isabelle Kyed as Töna and Niklas Kvarnbo Jönsson as Karl - with the most out-of-place character being Sara Shirpey's cop, Tomi (who seemed kind of all over the place, tonally). But, for the most part, Watch The Skies is a memorable film that hinges on the emotional core of Denise wanting to find her missing father, Uno, and finding belonging with the UFO Sweden group.

The content for Watch The Skies is decidedly PG-13, mostly for language. There is a surprisingly rough moment near the end of the film when a character finds a large glass shard sticking out of their leg, and the camera focuses on it being pulled out slowly, with blood pooling under the victim's hand on top of their pant leg. Other than that, there isn't really anything else beyond some bloody scrapes and cuts to characters' faces. According to the quotes section on IMDb, there's an "F" word, but I didn't personally hear one, so it's possible that it's only in the Swedish language version (but I don't know for sure because I didn't watch all of it). Otherwise, there is about 9 "S" words, a use of "Oh J-sus," 15 uses of "h*ll," 2 of "*ssh*le," and some other salty words or phrases. It wasn't necessary, too. Thematically, the movie is a little dark, but not profusely. It also isn't scary, although tonally it seems to hint at more intensity. If you don't know where the story is going, there's definitely more suspense, but I imagine a second watch will feel a lot lighter when you know what it's building up to. (Which can't be said for some suspenseful movies that never stop being suspenseful no matter how many times you watch them.)

Overall, if you like movies like Super 8, Interstellar and even Stranger Things - with less emphasis on there being creatures and aliens, and more emphasis on the human relationships - I definitely recommend checking out Watch The Skies.

Oh, and side note - the movie is rated PG-13, and it says so on the back of the disc case, but for some unexplainable reason, the disc itself inside the case says "Rated R" on it. I don't know if someone in quality control was off the day they proofed the disc design, but that feels like a significant "oops." Just know the movie isn't rated R.