‘Into The Sky’ Review – Blue Goo And Sam Richardson [Fantastic Fest 2026]

Drew Mylrea and Evan Buxbaum’s Into the Sky shows promise as a funny alien comedy, as we have Bobby, played by Sam Richardson, who wants to repair his relationship with his estranged wife, but every time he seems to have a chance at getting his life back on track, aliens abduct him. He keeps waking up naked in random places covered in blue goo, and apparently this has happened enough times that he is beginning to accept it as part of his life. Things become even more complicated when Bobby discovers that his wife has rented their cabin to Nico, an impulsive event planner played by Sofia Black-D’Elia. Though, to his surprise, this eventually becomes a strange partnership, while a fellow abductee named Jaden, played by David Cross, starts following Bobby around with his own unsettling agenda. The premise has plenty of potential for a funny and weird sci-fi comedy, but the movie never figures out what to do with it.

Richardson is naturally likable, which helps Bobby remain watchable, but the story itself doesn’t give him too much to work on, and that is very evident. The image of him waking up naked on a golf course covered in mysterious blue goo, only to get hit in the head by a golf ball, is a solid way to introduce the movie. It establishes that something bizarre is happening to this guy and that he has absolutely no control over it. Unfortunately, the film doesn’t build enough around that hook. Once Bobby gets involved with Nico and starts trying to win back his wife, the alien abductions increasingly feel like something happening alongside the actual story rather than something driving it.

That becomes a problem because the central relationship is so incredibly uninteresting. Bobby’s marriage is supposed to be the emotional reason behind everything he does, but the screenplay doesn’t do enough to establish why he wants this particular relationship back or what went wrong between them. Without that foundation, his desperation to reconcile with his wife never becomes particularly convincing. The movie tells us that this matters deeply to Bobby, but it doesn’t give us enough reason to feel it with him, so in doing so, the audience will feel fairly detached the entire time.

The partnership between Bobby and Nico doesn’t fare much better. Their arrangement is simple enough: Bobby discovers that Nico is living in his house because his wife rented it out, and after some initial confusion, the two agree to help each other. Nico is dealing with her difficult family while trying to plan her brother’s wedding, and Bobby agrees to pretend to be her boss so she can impress them. In return, Nico promises to put in a good word with Bobby’s wife. That setup could have created a fun odd-couple dynamic, and the movie even tries to hint and nudge at the idea of them being love interests, but Sam Richardson and Sofia Black-D’Elia have almost no chemistry together.

The problem isn’t just that they don’t work romantically, but they don’t have much chemistry as friends either. The movie seems convinced that there is some deeper connection developing between them, yet the performances never really sell it. Their interactions feel functional rather than spontaneous, and it becomes difficult to understand why either character would become particularly attached to the other. A comedy built around two strangers reluctantly helping each other needs that relationship to be the engine of the movie, and Into the Sky never gets it running.

The comedy suffers from the same problem. There are amusing ideas scattered throughout, especially when Bobby’s bizarre abductions collide with the much more ordinary problems of Nico’s family and wedding planning. Arturo Castro and Jon Rudnitsky add some energy to the family material, and David Cross has the kind of eccentric presence that should fit perfectly into a movie about alien abductions, as Jaden’s obsession with Bobby and his increasingly strange behavior provide some of the film’s more promising material. Yet most of the jokes don’t land as strongly as they should, and the movie often seems to wait for a laugh instead of naturally building toward one.

David Cross’s character is probably the clearest example of a good idea that isn’t fully executed. A fellow abductee who becomes increasingly fixated on Bobby is inherently funny and slightly unsettling, especially because Bobby has already been dealing with something he doesn’t understand. There is an opportunity to make Jaden a genuinely strange character who forces Bobby to confront the possibility that these abductions mean something larger. Instead, his storyline mostly feels like another complication added to a movie that already has trouble balancing its different pieces.

The alien element itself is also underused. The opening immediately establishes a bizarre mystery, and the repeated image of Bobby waking up in strange places covered in blue goo gives the movie a distinctive identity. But the more the story focuses on Bobby’s marriage and Nico’s family problems, the less interesting the science-fiction premise becomes. I kept wanting the movie to lean harder into the aliens because that was the part of the story that actually made it stand out.

There is also a strange disconnect between the movie’s premise and its emotional stakes. Bobby is supposed to be on a desperate quest to save his marriage, but the film doesn’t seem especially interested in the marriage itself. Nico is supposed to become an important person in his life, but their connection never feels genuine. Jaden is supposed to introduce another layer to the alien mystery, but his storyline mostly creates additional chaos. The individual pieces aren’t necessarily bad ideas. They just don’t come together in a way that makes the audience care about where any of them are going.

That is ultimately my biggest issue overall with Into the Sky. It isn’t that the movie lacks imagination, as there is a lot of meat on this bone in general, as we have alien abductions, blue goo, a strange fellow abductee, an awkward living arrangement, and a fake-boss scheme all giving it plenty of material to work with. The execution simply isn’t strong enough. The screenplay never develops its relationships properly, the comedy is inconsistent, and the science-fiction elements aren’t used enough to compensate for the weaker human story.

I also wish the movie had done more with Richardson. He is an actor who can be extremely funny without forcing a joke, and Bobby’s situation should give him plenty of opportunities to play the absurdity of someone whose life keeps getting interrupted by extraterrestrial abductions. Instead, he spends much of the film reacting to situations that aren’t particularly funny or emotionally compelling. Black-D’Elia has some entertaining moments as Nico, particularly when she is dealing with her family, but the lack of chemistry between the two leads makes those scenes feel more like setup than an actual relationship developing.

Into the Sky has a premise that sounds considerably more entertaining than the movie itself. A man trying to repair his marriage while repeatedly being abducted by aliens is a great starting point for a comedy, and the opening suggests there could be something genuinely weird and funny waiting underneath it. But the movie spends too much time on a relationship that never becomes interesting and a romance that never feels believable. The comedy rarely hits with the consistency needed to carry the weaker story, while the alien mythology is left on the sidelines for too much of the runtime.

Into the Sky had its World Premiere at Fantastic Fest 2026. 

Directors: Evan Wolf Buxbaum & Drew Mylrea

Writers: Evan Wolf Buxbaum & Drew Mylrea

Rated: NR

Runtime: 97m

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