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Space Sweepers Movie Review

Space Sweepers is a 2021 South Korean space opera film directed by Jo Sung-hee and starring Song Joong-ki. It’s a wildly entertaining, wonderful movie.

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“Between repairs and fines,

we just pay debt with more debt“

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Set in the year 2092 and follows the crew of a space junk collector ship called The Victory. When they discover a humanoid robot named Dorothy that’s known to be a weapon of mass destruction, they get involved in a risky business deal. The plot is rather familiar as it has its obvious ‘Star Wars’ influences in the space battles as well as some other anime and famous SF movie influences in regards to the overall storyline and many plot elements.

Although the ending is predictable and the movie is mostly straightforward in plot, this is the first ever South Korean epic sci-fi movie, so we should cut them some slack for all the plot deficiencies. The fact of the matter is that the movie is incredibly engaging despite its familiarity with the ‘WALL-E’ influences being particularly lovely. Also, hearing all those languages (Russian, English, French and Spanish) in a Korean movie was beautiful as the film is diverse and clearly modern in its intercultural portrayal of Earth’s future space pursuits.

The main reason why the movie clicked for me personally lies in the character development, which is absolutely phenomenal with each and every personality being immensely memorable. Not only are they strong individually, but they are also incredible and so much fun as a team. They are this ragtag family of misfits, reminiscent of ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’, but maybe even better.

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Tae-ho has a great backstory with his lost daughter and the theme of fatherhood is beautifully explored here. His scenes are among the most emotional of the bunch. Captain Jang is a badass female character and probably the coolest among this group of friends while Tiger Park’s mix in personality of imposing and sweet definitely was striking.

James Sullivan is a very dangerous, scary villain who unfortunately died in a not so memorable manner and some of his scenes were over-the-top, but for this type of movie, he worked as this very intelligent, eerie man with a dark backstory. Robot Bubs is amazing! She is this female robot who saved money to get a female skin (a possible transgender metaphor) and who is not only a powerful fighter, but very sassy with her comebacks. And of course Dorothy is simply one of the most adorable children in the history of cinema as she brightened up the screen every single time.

Space Sweepers does get overly chaotic in its action-heavy third act, but the space battles here are much more entertaining than they are in Star Wars, which was a pleasant surprise for sure. The movie also features a terrific score and fine editing. The special effects are astonishing and Netflix will hopefully bring in more Korean space movies for us to enjoy as the space debris is striking, the ships are super cool and the color palette is arresting.

The movie is also genuinely funny in character interactions and some very sassy dialogue. The second act is by far the best one as this is where the movie operated on all cylinders while the first act was a cool build-up and the third act is the most inferior part. But overall, it’s one of the most genuinely enjoyable blockbusters in quite some time.

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