Sputnik (2020)

This movie starts off well enough with an intriguing, if a little slow account of the aftermath of a Russian space craft's return to earth. There is a good deal of suspense throughout the movie and its well acted and reasonably well directed. The problems stem from the failing plot that surfaces about an hour into the screenplay where the focus shifts from the extraterrestrial and scientific aspect of the events, to one of inter-Soviet self interest, coupled with professional ambition, deceit and posturing.

This is all done fairly badly and is incongruous with the preceding story line. The result is a sudden and very disjointed feeling from what was a quite immersive film experience. I'm not sure why this was done, but I suspect it was a foolish attempt to add depth and dimension to a plot that really needed something quite spectacular to successfully bring it to conclusion given the topic at hand.

Though this isn't Alien, or anything like a number of other titles involving extraterrestrial or extraordinary beings unwittingly coming to be present normal life, It is s subject that has been breached numerous occasions, and finding a unique path for development which is successful isn't always easy. Here, the plot becomes messy, the scenes and dialog delusive, and progression of the story becomes dependant and the characters making unrealistic decisions, poor choices, and atypical behaviour.

I definitely liked it initially, but sadly I began rolling my eyes with the later developments and by the end I was fairly disappointed with what really should have been a good film.

Old Hollywood films always had romance in them. It didn't matter if it was a Spy film, Sci-Fi, Comedy, Thriller or some other genre. There was always some romantic subplot thrown in for good measure. This movie had aspects of this dated approach included for reasons I can only guess, and the results made it feel stilted and hackneyed, especially because it was done so obtusely.

I can't recommend it in all honesty, though I think a six is a fair enough score given it did have some good aspects.