Review of Sputnik (2020) by Muldjord — 21 Aug 2020

The first half of the movie is great. The effects are good, the story and characters are interesting. But there's a certain point where I lost interest.

It's a scene with a bit of a shock reveal. Up until that point you are fed tiny bits of information that only reveal just enough to keep you interested. But it fails to keep that momentum going and basically paints itself into a corner. So instead it just goes for that shock effect which, in my opinion, doesn't work well. Suddenly characters started to feel out of place and didn't react the way they should given the circumstances. I kind of guessed it before it happened, so it was what I was expecting (they hinted at it earlier in the movie in a pretty obvious way), but I was hoping it would outsmart me and go for something less obvious. Unfortunately it didn't.

So at that point the characters were all fleshed out. The plot was basically laid out. And now they had half a movie to wrap it up.

I'd say it's worth a watch for the first half. If you can then fast-forward through the last half you'll get a decent ending as well. Just don't expect it to surprise you in any interesting ways for that last part.