As much as I like to see new ideas, sometimes it’s fun to just enjoy something familiar. If you can imagine Firefly meets The Expanse meets Elysium, that’s basically Space Sweepers.
The eccentric crew of a deep space salvage team accidentally stumble across what’s being broadcast around the galaxy as a dangerous hydrogen bomb in the body of a humanoid-android girl. Massively in debt and looking for an easy payday, the crew must decide what to do with the little girl who doesn’t behave quite like an android.
Writer/Director Sung-hee Jo wasn’t reinventing the wheel here, more like adding some fancy rims. Obviously inspired by a number of existing sci-fi properties, there’s always room for a classic good vs evil (poor vs rich) story with some flair. The characters are all pretty familiar archetypes for these kinds of movies, but this movie wasn’t about breaking new ground. It was about having fun on a ride that we already know we like. The multi-national approach, using a number of different spoken languages was a nice touch that made it seem a little bit more real and should give it some global appeal.
It was a little bit too long at 2hrs 16min as the action elements gave way to some character backstory that was too drawn out. It’s a weird future with a new set of rules, so there was always going to be a certain amount of exposition, the need to over-explain some things stalled the narrative flow in certain moments. It could have had a good 20-minutes trimmed off or been made into a 6-part series, where there are more time and room to expand on certain things.
Ye-Rin Park steals the show as Dorothy/Kang Kot-nim, the so-called super-weapon. Her character forced the rag-tag crew to really come together in a way you don’t from them prior and her performance is so adorable, you can’t help but feel sympathy for her predicament. The whole crew is pretty strong, including Song Joong-Ki, Kim Tae-Ri, Seon-Kyu Jin, and Hae-Jin Yoo as the crew’s battle Robot. Even though the villain pretty cliche as well, Richard Armitage did a good job reminding me of a menacing Sean Bean.
The visuals effects are much better than I would have anticipated and the overall production design comes through powerfully in the set design and the costuming. It had almost a Snowpiercer kinda vibe to it. The vehicle design isn’t the slickest, but it’s meant to be utilitarian as the economy of the poor is centered around salvaging space debris. When it came to the presentation, it definitely looked the part.
It reminded me of the kind of stuff I grew up watching. I didn’t set my expectations very high, but Space Sweepers is a good time.
Recommendation: If you have a general affinity for sci-fi or enjoy action-adventure movies, there’s a good chance you’ll find something worthwhile in Space Sweepers.