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Screener Squad: Sputnik

Sputnik Movie Review

SPUTNIK MOVIE REVIEW

“Sputnik” begins in 1983 as two Soviet cosmonauts are en route to earth. As they prepare for re-entry, they notice something crawling on the surface of their space capsule. Meanwhile, neurophysiologist Tatiana Yurievna (Oksana Akinshina) is standing trial before a medical review board. Tatiana’s maverick tendencies and unorthodox methods have gotten her in trouble but it’s exactly those qualities that get her recruited by the Soviet military for a top secret assignment. She’s flown to a remote base to examine a single patient: Konstantin (Pyotr Fyodorov), the sole survivor of the space mission. Konstantin is suspected of murdering his fellow cosmonaut, but his severe amnesia means he has no memory of the event. Worse, Konstantin came back with a powerful alien being inside of him. The alien can only live outside of the host body for brief periods while Konstantin is unconscious. Naturally, the military wants to weaponize the alien and they need Tatiana’s help to separate it from Konstantin, whom they consider expendable. Now Tatiana must race to learn the secrets of the alien while trying to save both her patient and herself from certain death.

Originally set to debut at the Tribeca Film Festival, Sputnik was instead released on VOD in Russia where it became the most viewed VOD title ever in that country, beating out even the biggest Hollywood blockbusters. On August 14, North American VOD audiences get to see what all the fuss was about. Our motley crew of space cases, Aaron, Lewayne, Spider-Mike and Marco were all sufficiently impressed with this modestly budgeted sci-fi chiller. Listen to us struggle to pronounce Russian names, try to define ‘sputnik’ and attempt to convert rubles to dollars, while discussing director Egor Abramenko’s debut feature.

OFFICIAL TRAILER

DIRECTED BY: Egor Abramenko

STARRING: Oksana Akinshina, Fyodor Bondarchuk, Pyotr Fyodorov, Anton Vasiliev, Vitaliya Korniyenko, Aleksey Demidov, Anna Nazarova, Aleksandr Marushev, Albrecht Zander, Pavel Ustinov

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