There’s no denying the almost unbelievable levels of ambition packed into the South Korean sci-fi epic Space Sweepers (Korean: 승리호), a 2021 action adventure from director Jo Sung-hee that has found its way to Netflix. Talk about grandiose, the movie runs two hours and fifteen minutes and is utterly stuffed to the rafters with large-scale visual effects and wham-bam shoot ’em up, punch ’em up action. Cast with a slew of well-known and attractive actors and bubbling over with bucket loads of potential, I can see where it might be a real good time for some, but I think for many fans of the genre, will feel all too familiar and nearly entirely absent of awe.
The story is set in the year 2092 and of course, good ol’ Earth ain’t what she used to be, the surface practically a wasteland for those trying to stay alive on the planet. They are the poor and downtrodden as you can guess, while the well off and super wealthy have taken to orbit, living in enormous fabricated paradises where life is nothing but a luxury (and a flat Earthers wet dream). Running the show is the seemingly benevolent James Sullivan (Richard Armitage), a once ruined young man who has built a nirvana in the sky … for those who can afford it, leaving behind a growing population of destitute forgettables wallowing in a deadly fate.
Meanwhile, we meet a crew of misfits who serve as space sweepers, flitting about collecting space junk like many others who find a meager living in such a competitive trade. The ship is called The Victory and captained by the hard-edged Jang (Kim Tae-ri), a petite but wily young woman who runs a tight ship. Her pilot is Tae-ho (Song Joong-ki), a former commander in Sullivan’s army known as the first certified “genius” in the ranks. Running the engines is a heavily tattooed former gang leader named Tiger Park (Jin Seon-kyu), and acting as a sort of jack-of-all-trades is the ships robot Bubs (voiced by Yoo Hae-jin) that dreams of becoming a real girl one day.
One day, they come upon a bit of debris with a surprise inside, a small child named Dorothy (Park Ye-rin), who they learn from broadcasts is a humanoid android created as a super weapon. Not good. Initially panicked by her presence, they realize she has great value and try to make a deal to get some cash, but something is a little different about this “girl” and soon enough everything has changed and the crew of The Victory go from looking to make a buck to rescuing the entire human race.
So, first of all, there’s much that should be applauded for what Space Sweepers tries to do, especially in its efforts to draw in a world-wide audience (many international characters speak their own language on screen) and sort of homage many tropes of the sci-fi genre, though to be honest, a few felt a little less energetic, or maybe wholly uninspired. If you’ve seen a Marvel movie or a science fiction thriller in the last twenty years, you can bet all the money in your pocket that it’s going to get some kind of nod here. What that does is, most unfortunately, detract from the genuine root of the story that could have had far more impact. As it is, with generic stock good guys and a painfully hollow bad guy, there’s very little to get behind in terms of emotional investment. More so, some of the motivations and actual choices made by these people simply don’t ring all that true.
Yes, Dorothy is almost unnaturally adorable, and like the crew that find her, you feel overwhelmed with need to protect her, but where that could have been pivotal in establishing some real heart beats in the story, the film goes halfway and depends more on rote action and a convoluted third act that loses its grip. It’s a little frustrating because the world building in the first fifteen minutes of all this is sensational, and while you might question the logic of some of the science, it’s all okay because the film so enthusiastically commits to its premise.
Either way, while Space Sweepers is fun to look at and chock full of characters ready to do something different, the filmmakers play it all too safe, leaving this entertaining but conventional with barely a moment of wonder. I suspect there’s more to come from this massive investment, and maybe further adventures could pull some real innovation from the potential it holds.