As the scientist who becomes attracted to her patient, Akinshina gives a strong performance...

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Oct 8, 2020

"Sputnik" is a reminder of the mixed-bag experience that so many of them offer: It's an efficient, effects-driven ride with snippets of real ideas, but never quite willing to take them out of this world.

| Original Score: C+ | Aug 21, 2020

Most of all, I recommend Sputnik for its monster, which will slither then stalk and snake into your brain...

| Aug 20, 2020

I found this movie a little bit generic... I am really tired of these slithery things that just screech a lot. We really need new creature animation.

| Aug 18, 2020

It has the sensibility of [Andrei] Tarkovsky, but it also has the rage and thriller aspects of Ridley Scott.

| Aug 18, 2020

Sputnik sets its scene with a modicum of fuss and a healthy dose of ominousness...Sputnik nonetheless has a concept ideal for follow-up installments.

| Aug 17, 2020

In a concrete Russian military facility, no-one can hear you scream. Sputnik offers obvious time-honoured sci-fi/horror shenanigans with a few fun tweaks to the formula.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 17, 2020

It's easy to see why Sputnik has dominated the streaming services in its native Russia.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 14, 2020

Sputnik's genre pleasures are modest, but like the best sci-fi, it gets you thinking.

| Aug 14, 2020

This is altogether well-made, straightforward entertainment, gross but contained, intriguingly structured: a movie as slickly designed as the slime trailing the alien's mermaid butt.

| Aug 14, 2020

Duller than it sounds.

| Aug 14, 2020

Strong performances, strikingly spare production design and somber cinematography convey a sense of something important going on. That's no small achievement in what proves to be a creature feature with flair.

| Aug 13, 2020

The performances and characterizations add heft, and the very Russian vibe of soulful heaviness sets it apart from its American cousins.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Aug 13, 2020

There is no denying that Sputnik is a work of incredible craftsmanship and a unique spin on a brand of Eighties science fiction. But without more believable character arcs, Sputnik loses the very human element it seems so determined to save.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 13, 2020

Egor Abramenko's Russian extraterrestrial creature feature Sputnik... is a gory science-fiction fright.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 13, 2020

While "Sputnik" doesn't make its substantial borrowings from other sci-fi pictures entirely new, it does juice them up enough to yield a genuinely scary and satisfying experience.

| Aug 13, 2020

Abramenko maintains the film's finite appeal throughout, mostly thanks to a familiar aura and a charismatic lead performance by Oksana Akinshina, a fine surrogate for the tough-as-nails heroine Ellen Ripley.

| Aug 13, 2020

This offspring of Ridley Scott's classic is very much its own slick, engaging psychological horror-thriller, anchored by a strong lead performance by Oksana Akinshina.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 13, 2020

The clever and nicely gory "Sputnik" comes from Russia with love, slime, and an impressive lesson in efficient, low-cost pulp filmmaking.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 12, 2020

A supremely confident 1980s-set sci-fi refrigerated with elements of a Soviet-era thriller and scares straight out of Alien.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 12, 2020