hwillow
A good movie with some flaws
Space Sweepers is a fun, light watch, speacially for those who like the found familly trope.
The story is quite good, albeit not particularly innovative. I liked the idea of focusing on space garbage men who are allowed in to clean but never as citizens. I also enjoyed how the overall dirtiness of our main leads surroundings contrasts with the clean sets of space citizens. The ideia that a corporation could have the power to create a nation and decide who is allowed in and who is not is a good premise for a sci-fi movie. Even though it's an action movie, I think Space Sweepers does particularly good with it's more dramatic/ touching scenes. The characters feelings are believable and you understand their struggles. The inclusion of people from many different countries, all speaking different languages was a plus for me. It made the world more believable and diverse even thought it opened the door to some bad acting which might annoy some viewers. Personally I found that the bad acting from some of the non-korean actors actually fitted their characters.
Of all the cast I was only familiar with Kim Tae Ri's work (she's such an amazing actress) but overall I think the main cast did a good and convincing job with the script they were given. Our team of space sweepers is quite entertaining to watch and appear to be nuanced. I use the term appear because I feel that even thought these characters were written as having complex personalities and motivations, with flaws and qualities, the execution (for reasons I will discuss bellow) didn't quite hit the mark. It's rather ironic that the most complex character was Bubs, a robot. Even so, I rather liked this ragtag team and their interactions with each other and with Dorothy. Speaking of Dorothy, child actors can be hit or miss but Park Ye Rin did a good job, mostly in being cute and charming which was pretty much all that was asked of her.
However, Space Sweepers has two main flaws that might affect your viewing experience negatively, depending on how much you care about these things. The first and, in my opinion, main flaw of the movie is it's directing and editing. I'm not familiar with Jo Sung Hee's, the director, work but, from what I can see, this is his most ambitious project. This might explain some of the things I'm about to point out. Now, I'm an attentive watcher, who doesn't get lost often. I pay attention to little details and I rarely question myself about what's going on on screen, as long as I'm given enough information. This is where Space Sweepers confuses me, because I feel like in theory, the film has all the necessary information for you to understand everything that is going on, but in reality it hasn't. There's a lack of establishing shots and a lot of the sets are basically indistinguishable from each other. This makes it hard to understand where the action is taking place and, therefore, why are the characters there. Besides this, the editing is very choppy, mainly making the action and fast paced scenes very confusing and hard to follow, but also affecting slower, more serious scenes and resulting in sometimes weirdly paced moments.
The second major flaw of the movie is it's villain, who I think is a rather weak character in terms of writing, coming of as a stereotypical big evil guy. I get what they were trying to do and, if done right, it would've been great (even if predictable). The actor playing the villain actually did a good job with the script and the directing he was given, but his characterization was weak. I think it would've been more effective if the viewers didn't know basically from the start he was the bad guy and his motivations were shown instead of told.
These two things prevent Space Sweepers from going from a good movie to a really good movie. Nevertheless, it is still a great watch, which might actually improve with repeated watching, since the viewer will have a better understanding of the world the story takes place in. On the plus side, it has a fun and diverse group of characters, strong female leads, an interesting story, with plenty of action, heartfelt and comedic moments, and a cute kid. Don't take the movie too seriously and I guarantee you will have a good time while watching it.
The story is quite good, albeit not particularly innovative. I liked the idea of focusing on space garbage men who are allowed in to clean but never as citizens. I also enjoyed how the overall dirtiness of our main leads surroundings contrasts with the clean sets of space citizens. The ideia that a corporation could have the power to create a nation and decide who is allowed in and who is not is a good premise for a sci-fi movie. Even though it's an action movie, I think Space Sweepers does particularly good with it's more dramatic/ touching scenes. The characters feelings are believable and you understand their struggles. The inclusion of people from many different countries, all speaking different languages was a plus for me. It made the world more believable and diverse even thought it opened the door to some bad acting which might annoy some viewers. Personally I found that the bad acting from some of the non-korean actors actually fitted their characters.
Of all the cast I was only familiar with Kim Tae Ri's work (she's such an amazing actress) but overall I think the main cast did a good and convincing job with the script they were given. Our team of space sweepers is quite entertaining to watch and appear to be nuanced. I use the term appear because I feel that even thought these characters were written as having complex personalities and motivations, with flaws and qualities, the execution (for reasons I will discuss bellow) didn't quite hit the mark. It's rather ironic that the most complex character was Bubs, a robot. Even so, I rather liked this ragtag team and their interactions with each other and with Dorothy. Speaking of Dorothy, child actors can be hit or miss but Park Ye Rin did a good job, mostly in being cute and charming which was pretty much all that was asked of her.
However, Space Sweepers has two main flaws that might affect your viewing experience negatively, depending on how much you care about these things. The first and, in my opinion, main flaw of the movie is it's directing and editing. I'm not familiar with Jo Sung Hee's, the director, work but, from what I can see, this is his most ambitious project. This might explain some of the things I'm about to point out. Now, I'm an attentive watcher, who doesn't get lost often. I pay attention to little details and I rarely question myself about what's going on on screen, as long as I'm given enough information. This is where Space Sweepers confuses me, because I feel like in theory, the film has all the necessary information for you to understand everything that is going on, but in reality it hasn't. There's a lack of establishing shots and a lot of the sets are basically indistinguishable from each other. This makes it hard to understand where the action is taking place and, therefore, why are the characters there. Besides this, the editing is very choppy, mainly making the action and fast paced scenes very confusing and hard to follow, but also affecting slower, more serious scenes and resulting in sometimes weirdly paced moments.
The second major flaw of the movie is it's villain, who I think is a rather weak character in terms of writing, coming of as a stereotypical big evil guy. I get what they were trying to do and, if done right, it would've been great (even if predictable). The actor playing the villain actually did a good job with the script and the directing he was given, but his characterization was weak. I think it would've been more effective if the viewers didn't know basically from the start he was the bad guy and his motivations were shown instead of told.
These two things prevent Space Sweepers from going from a good movie to a really good movie. Nevertheless, it is still a great watch, which might actually improve with repeated watching, since the viewer will have a better understanding of the world the story takes place in. On the plus side, it has a fun and diverse group of characters, strong female leads, an interesting story, with plenty of action, heartfelt and comedic moments, and a cute kid. Don't take the movie too seriously and I guarantee you will have a good time while watching it.
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