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Good Sci Fi flick with heart. Would have been great if it had ended a little earlier.
This Sci Fi flick has awesome production values - the CGI and action scenes are top notch. There's a very simple story. The space sweepers are the "poor" from earth that make their living scavenging waste left behind by the rich and powerful, who have all escaped into space since we didn't take care of earth and it's now dying slowly. The protagonist's daughter died in an accident and he's doing everything he can to get enough money so the official channels can find and retrieve her body before decaying orbit causes it to burn up on re-entry. Then, one salvage mission discover "Dorothy" a robot captured by terrorists that contains a bomb.The reaction of crew of his vessel, The Victory, is mixed, but the acting is top notch. The captain is suitably bad-ass, the former gangster with tattoos and dread locks is EVEN more bad ass, and the funniest and baddest ass of them all would have to be ... the robot. Yes. The former military assassin robot who is SUCH a capitalist he/she cheats his/her crewmates at cards, so that he/she can get skin grafts. He/she is awesome! They should make a whole movie based on the adventures of this wise cracking robot. The little girl is cute and supporting characters do well, including the villain.
The story is quite predictable in parts, but the father-daughter and family bond are both effective and heart warming enough to tug on one's heart strings. Who isn't going to melt at a cute kid drawing pictures of you? *arrow slams into heart* aaak you got me, you got me good.
If this movie had ended with the crew sacrificing themselves with the bomb, it would have been a 9, maybe even 9.5. Heroic tragic endings, THAT is the Korean Way. But somehow, they introduced a Deus Ex Machina, which made me immediately feel cheated. It turned it into more of an "American" movie, to let the crew live, and each member then has a happy ending. Still okay, but no longer great. I don't know, maybe I'm jaded, but it seems to me the sad ending would have been a better place to end and the movie would have been more of a "Korean" movie.
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A love letter to the scifi genre
Whoever worked on this knew what they loved about the scifi genre and they knew what story they wanted to tell and they did it.Its a lovely and poignant action filled romp from start to finish.
Acting is great. Characters are touching. Costume and set design is memorable. Action scenes are smooth and stylized. Villian is just the right amount of over the top.
Also, the robot is trans.
And! It felt really international in a way that more media should. I heard at LEAST 6 languages with maim chars and long scenes being in french and english and chinese and korean.
If you like starwars, cowboy bepop, firefly, wall-e, or like any of that kinda of genre of scifi then you will love this.
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Great CGI & Story!
Really enjoyable movie, especially for casual watching. I started watching because I liked Song Joong ki, stuck around for the story and the other actors. The story is a bit slow and predictable in my opinion but enjoyable nontheless. I was especially impressed with the special effects and the action scences. The CGI was very realistic which is really crucial for sci-fi themed movies. Although it is mainly an action adventure movie there are many emotianal scenes, during which I definitely had to cry. Highly reccomendWas this review helpful to you?
This review may contain spoilers
A mostly forgettable and boring space romp we've seen before
I want to preface that I enjoy Song Joong-Ki and Kim Tae-Ri as actors.Space Sweepers has all the looks of an ambitious production, but no substance to back it up. It's a real shame and a waste of talent. The plot is fairly generic and definitely something you've seen before if you've watched any science fiction from Hollywood or anime from Japan, which isn't necessarily a problem if it's done correctly (see: Bebop, Cowboy), but this movie is neither compelling or interesting to warrant it's 2 hour runtime.
We learn next to nothing about the characters they introduce us to. The world building is scattered, inconsistent, and most of the time you're stuck watching a gigantic CGI mess. What brought this group of 4 together? What are their goals? How does anyone else feel about the UTS? There are so many underdeveloped plot points, no wonder that it's hard to care about anything that's happening on the screen.
The central antagonist has the same, simple, braindead modus operandi that has been overused to death. Get rid of the filth, save only the elite. What is this? A DC movie? Marvel? He even comes complete with random transformations and changes in voice that never gets explained. His back story even feels tacked on with a short monologue, like it’s supposed to be enough. The movie just drops these minor tidbits about a character's life and expects us to go "Wow, nice character building!" and calls it a day. Imagine if you'd watched Avengers: Endgame without watching any of the previous Marvel movies. That's what this feels like. It "feels" like I'm supposed to care about these characters, but I'm missing so much context as to "why". They meet this random girl, they show us a couple scenes of them interacting, and a minute later, she's like family that's been with them since day one. I don't get it.
In the end, nothing really happens, we ultimately reset to where we were in the beginning, with some slight changes to a robot for some reason? The ultimate climax of the movie is robbed by a stupid power that is never ultimately explained and can seemingly do anything and everything without limit. Who gave this movie Infinity Stones plot armor? It's lazy.
Ultimately, this movie is a ton of sizzle and no steak. The bright colors, star actors and diversity of language gives the appearance of a grand production, but it's ultimately for nothing. Space Sweepers is just boring.
Recommendation: PASS
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I cried lololol
Finally I finished watching this movie omg and I love it. While the story wasn’t really THAT unique if you wanna compare to like many other space scifi movies that came before, it's really an impressive movie. Not to mention it was the first made by Koreans and starring Korean casts.Never really expect a story about some junk scavengers would spiral into a race to save the Earth but there ya go. I really love how the back stories of the main characters were gradually revealed... not to mention how Taeho turned out to be like Yoo Sijin in space lol. I had lots of tears of sads and happiness throughout the movie I never thought I'd get hit with so much feels in this movie!
And another aspects that I really love in this movie was how much multilingual this movie is like everyone of different ethnicities were a lot of times communicates using their own languages and everyone could understand each other using a universal translation gadgets that they all have. That was really rare to see in even Hollywood movies. I had so much fun watching this movie, I really love it so much!
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A great Ride but too much explanation
Spends too much time trying to explain/narrate the background of this world.Love the interaction and comraderies in the crew. (this is more evident if you watch the movie with the original voice instead of dubbed) The story grips you and makes you care about the characters. Each character has a reason to be there in the crew.
Generic Evil Super Villain.
Except for the beginning sequence, enjoyed the pacing of the movie.
But i was abit taken back by the ending. The way they end the movie took away from the twist they tried so hard to execute.
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it is good but...
I expected a lot since I've seen people praising it as the first-ever science space fiction of kfilms but it did not exceed my expectations. yes, it offers great CGI, wonderful shots but the story is not so jaw-dropping. The casts were great, true! they pulled it off but, the story was lacking. And the plot is not well introduced, thinking how complex it was... it occurred to be quite lousy (for me).Some people may really like this, for scific suckers for sure and, I did watch it for that. Nevertheless, it is worth watching and a must to recommend.
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This review may contain spoilers
South Korea is the New Hollywood!
All Hollywood can do anymore is give us CGI-fest films with no depth in character or story, or remakes that are almost all worse than their originals. Typically, the films tend to mirror the demands of their audience; people who can barely sit through anything that actually requires some attention.Korea gives us a great space story that is a bit of a mixture of Wall-E, Firefly, and Blade Runner. The film also gives us a great balance of story, character, and action. Why does the story work so well? Because like all great storytellers, they focus on the story and the characters.
George Lucas once stated, "a film with special effects and no story is a pretty boring thing." Funny how he would actually end up going against his own proverb, and it is also true of what has happened with much of western filmmaking, as stated above.
The film also has a lot of heart, which will make the viewer all the more appreciative that it isn't just an action movie. This is enhanced by veteran actors like Joong-Ki Song (Descendants of the Sun) and Tae-Ri Kim (Mr. Sunshine) as well as Jin Seon-Kyu.
The movie isn't perfect, but if you want a good story, some laughs, and some great action sequences, you won't be disappointed.
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Don’t sleep on this movie!!
I kept seeing Space Sweepers come up in my Netflix queue and I kept bypassing. It even had one of my favorite actors starring in it but I just wasn’t feeling the whole science fiction theme. That is until I started watching it. I told myself I would only watch half the movie but I ended watching the entire movie. Why? Because even the beginning had me interested in what would happen next. I also enjoyed the action scenes and the fact that while the movie is Korean, they still had some English speaking scenes. I also appreciate that there is a strong woman as part of the team. While I have to admit this is not a run to the theater blockbuster hit. It still is quite good and entertaining to watch. I found myself relating to the characters and rooting for them in the end. For this to be the first Korean space movie, it is quite impressive and the producers/directors did an excellent job with selecting the cast. All the main actors held there own and the chemistry of the actors was good as well.Was this review helpful to you?
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This movie could easily rival Hollywood blockbusters with its scale, action sequences and CGI. There were big shoot-outs, smart-ass robots, everybody’s favorite found family trope with an adorable little kid to boot... One thing that I adored was that the movie didn’t adopt English as the universal future world language. They all spoke in their own native tongues using universal translators. What a smart idea. Sure, it took a while to get used to - personally, I’m used to watching a movie/series in one language so after a while I can follow its melody, its flow which meant that I had to pay close attention here but I didn’t mind. It was a really interesting idea.
Two things I wished they explored more in-depth were both connected to Sullivan: a) why/how did Cpt. Jang tried to kill Sullivan and b) the fact that Kim Tae Ho was the only child soldier that Sullivan had a personal connection with. Those two things felt like wasted opportunities.
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Deserves to be on the big screen!
Was so excited for this due to Kim Tae-Ri's breathtaking performance on the iconic KDrama series, Mr Sunshine and she didn't disappoint. If anything deserved to be on the big screen, it was this - shows what $24million can actually get you in terms of effects. The VFX is stunning! It draws you in during the first five minutes and it's so good to see something of this scale after so long. In Hollywood, $24million would get you the first 15 minutes of an MCU film - not a whole film! There are bits that are a little patchy but it doesn't detract from the story.The character development can be a bit slow if you're not used to it, but as is the way with a kdrama or korean film, the character development is a bit of a rollercoaster ride - but if drags you and in and you become so invested in their journey.
Kim Tae-Ri is her classic brilliance and while I've not seen Decendants of the Sun yet, but Song Joong Ki is a great lead. The rest of the cast of the main team is great too, each with a story and you see them all band together in classic style - a bit like Guardians of the Galaxy but in Earths orbit haha.
If there is a negative, then it's the Western cast and/or dialogue. It just gets a bit diluted in translation - but then that seems to be the norm in KDrama's so makes sense to see it here too. It's a shame as the villain (Sillivan) was one of the main actors in the Hobbit!
Please give it a watch on the largest screen you can!
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