Space Sweepers takes place in an all-too-plausible future where the Earth has been rendered almost uninhabitable by pollution and climate change. Those who can afford to have fled to space, with the wealthiest living in luxury on a colony owned by the UTS corporation. A Mars colonization effort is also underway, spearheaded by UTS’s founder and CEO, James Sullivan (Richard Armitage). The less fortunate survive by fighting over space debris to sell as scrap metal.
The premise requires a healthy dose of exposition, and the first 20 minutes of the film occasionally drag as a result. It helps that an exhilarating chase-sequence and stunning shots of the colony’s artificial biosphere break up the rounds of info-dumping. Eventually, the film focuses on the ragtag crew of a scavenging ship called Victory, led by the hard-drinking and unscrupulous Captain Jang (Kim Tae-ri). Her crew includes Tae-ho (Song Joong-ki), a jaded ex-soldier who defected from UTS’s private military; Tiger Park (Jin Seon-kyu), an engineer and former drug kingpin who narrowly escaped execution on Earth; and Bubs, a former military robot in the process of forging her own identity. The plot takes off when Tae-ho discovers a stowaway on board the Victory: an adorable young girl named Kot-nim (Park Ye-rin) who may or may not be a dangerous android in disguise. What ensues is both a surprisingly heartfelt tale of found family and a scathing indictment of classism.
A South Korean production, Space Sweepers features a multinational and multilingual cast. While the main characters are played by Korean actors, auxiliary characters hail from across the globe. The film’s future is hardly an egalitarian utopia—after all, class exploitation and ecological devastation drive the plot—but it’s still encouraging to see a future that represents humanity in all of its diversity. Science fiction often falls into one of two traps when it comes to imagining humanity’s future: thoughtlessly presenting a whitewashed vision of the future by failing to cast people of color or sidestepping questions of diversity by presenting a world where cultural differences and bigotry are magically absent. Space Sweepers does neither. The film acknowledges the very real inequalities that plague our world without perpetuating those inequalities in its casting and message.
Indeed, wealth inequality is the film’s driving antagonistic force, embodied by the CEO James Sullivan. I’m of two minds about the film’s approach to Sullivan. He begins the film with an air of forced benevolence that thinly veils his capitalistic greed. Any hint of nuance rapidly gives way to acts of almost cartoonish villainy. On the one hand, I’m all for exposing and literalizing the evils of the hyper-rich. On the other, the over-the-top nature of his evil deeds obscures the blander and more pervasive evils of systemic oppression. Ultimately, most of Sullivan’s scenes strike me as heavy-handed and unnecessary, reiterating points that the film’s already made in more effective ways. While Armitage is an excellent actor, his talent alone can’t elevate an underdeveloped character. Many of his scenes add runtime without adding sufficient narrative substance.
When the crew of a space junk collector ship called The Victory discovers a humanoid robot named Dorothy that's known to be a weapon of mass destruction, they get involved in a risky business deal which puts their lives at stake.
Women who pray together, play together. Very rarely would I describe a story about a group of punk rockers as “whimsical”, but such an engaging array of visual and comedic components make this stand-out new series the star that it is.
It’s easy to dismiss Joel and Ethan Coen for writing from the world they build from outside the box of overarching Hollywood stereotypes, but their inability to compromise their collective vision is precisely what makes the simplistic nature of their world-building and characters so brilliant. It’s also what led Fargo to collect seven Oscar nominations and two wins for Best Original Screenplay and Best Actress for Frances McDormand’s brilliant portrayal of the sincere, motherly detective whose wholesome demeanor seizes the day over the selfishness, corruption and evil of the men who don’t comprehend that there’s more to life than a little money.
'Call Me Kate' is for the fans. It's an intimate account of an iconic film star.
A world of expansion awaits.
Amanda Riley gets the opportunity to travel to Vietnam for the experience of a lifetime.
The movie opens with an empty house, cameras pan around from the perspective of what viewers are confused about at first, but turns out to be a spirit living in the home.
