Space Sweepers, directed by Jo Sung-Hee, follows a rag-tag group of debris collectors in the vicinity of Earth who get caught up in a dangerous deal for a humanoid kid. Space Sweepers feels like the long and clunky first-episode of a sci-fi show that you struggle to get through but hope to like by the end of the first season. The robot longing to be a woman, the cool and badass Captain Jang, the beat-up and lovable spaceship, and the cute and powerful kid who completes the endearing found family trope – There’s so many great elements in this film that could’ve been put together beautifully.
One thing that brings this movie down is a flat and generic villain. You can’t expect the audience to be surprised when the immortal billionaire CEO ends up being a bad guy a quarter of the way into the movie. It’s a waste of all of our time when this reveal is played up with suspense. Furthermore, his evil plot is comically evil. If his only personality trait is his evil conspiracies, at least give him some charm or style so we can at least be concerned about this man; I’m not scared of space Bill Gates. The world of Space Sweepers feels hollow and one-dimensional when it’s run by such an uncomplicated man. In the same vein, Space Sweepers needs to find a more interesting theme for the “Rich vs Poor” storyline woven into its story. It doesn’t feel like a real world; There need to be more realistic details about the politics, government, and people of the world to make it a more compelling story. It’s difficult to get through watching two hours of a world that feels so out-of-touch.
Another problem with the film is its lack of payoff. There’s an unspoken rule in playful films like these that there needs to be some sort of cinematic space battle type pay-off at the end to make the audience feel like their investment of two whole hours into the movie was worth it. I’m talking about slow-motion machine guns, that one guy sacrificing himself at the end for his crew, or some sort of wild misdirect scenario. Some of these elements happened at the end of Space Sweepers, but it doesn’t feel worth it. The special effects were pretty great, but there is a deeper problem with the film. In short, the writing is sub-par. It’s definitely not terrible, but the story feels so planned and unrealistic. Most of the side characters feel like plot elements – people that can be picked up and used later in the story to help the heroes. The heroes themselves have backstories and motives, but they seem far-fetched and extra. It’s easy to like the ideal of the heroes, but not easy to get attached to them.
In a way, that sums up the sentiment I have for the movie as a whole. I wanted to root for the charming underdogs and get a little hyped about space for a bit, but I didn’t get what I wanted from the film. I saw what they were trying to do and I appreciated it, but the flat worlds and characters just didn’t feel right. Despite all of the disappointments in this film, there is a small part of me that feels like I judged this film too harshly. I revisited pilots of some of the sci-fi shows I love dearly today, and they weren’t very great. They had big ideas and people that didn’t quite run right till the season was done warming up. If the character development and storylines were paced more slowly in Space Sweepers, I can see this being something I would enjoy watching. Right now, I’m stuck with the reality that it could’ve been better.
2.5/5 STARS