Daily Archives: February 6, 2021

Feb 6 2021

Space Sweepers (2021) Movie Review

Space Sweepers – Emotional Space Adventure

Director: Sung-hee Jo

Starring: Song Joong-Ki, Kim Tae-ri, Seon-Kyu Jin, Hae-jin Yoo, Richard Armitage

Plot: 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.

Runtime: 2 Hours 16 Minutes

There may be spoilers in the rest of the review

Story: Space Sweepers starts as we enter the world of 2092, humanity is left living in poverty, with the wealthy moving to space cities around Earth, created by Sullivan (Armitage). Tae-ho (Joong-Ki) works as the pilot of space junk collecting ship The Victory, under Captain Jang (Tae-ri), Tiger (Jin) and robot Buds, one of the most feared group in space.

When the group are on their latest salvage, they find an android that looks like a little girl, Dorothy (Yoo), one that is used as a deadly explosive by the terrorist groups in the world. The crew find themselves caught up in the middle of a get rich scheme with Dorothy, which is only expose the nature of the new world.

Thoughts on Space Sweepers

Characters & Performances – Tae-ho is a former soldier, a father searching for his lost daughter in space, struggling to pay the debts he owes. He is the pilot on a junk collecting spaceship and brings a human connection to Dorothy when they find her. He will do anything to protect Dorothy, even though he has lost he killer instinct from being a soldier. He is the heart and soul of the crew, the clue which keeps them together. Song Joong-Ki is great to watch in this role, with his character having the biggest story involved in the film. Captain Jang is the ultra cool leader of the group, she knows how to handle any difficult situation and has a back story, which only enforces her kick ass attitude. Kim Tae-ri is the strong leader the crew need with her performance. Tiger Park is the engineer on the spacecraft, his past will have him seen as a loose cannon, he shows a carrying side for Dorothy too, he is tough as nails character. Seon-kyu Jin is great to watch as the hard man with a heart of gold. Dorothy is the android girl the crew find, she was built for one reason making her one of the most dangerous pieces of equipment in the universe. Buds is the robot that loves using the harpoon on the missions, this character will get the most laughs, without being fully comic relief, a great addition to the crew. Sullivan is the mastermind who built the cities in the sky, looking to help humanity regrow, only he has a bigger motivation for his actions. We could have seen a lot more of this character, as he falls into the background of the bigger picture we are seeing.

Story – The story here follows a crew of space pirates who are travelling around collecting space junk discover an android girl that turns out to be a weapon of mass destruction that needs protecting. This is a film with a story that gets a lot bigger than you would imagine from the outside looking in. we get to see a crew of misfits that compliment each other to be known as the best in their field, going up against everyone who wants the android girl. The story is big and dives into a lot of different themes of pollution, population and resources, looking at how people might look to deal with the problems. The story does end up giving us a great sense of adventure and doesn’t take anytime at all to throw us into the world.

Themes – Space Sweepers is a sci-fi adventure film set in the not to distant future, taking us into a world devastated by pollution and population, adapted to live around the space above the Earth. The Earth looks depressive, dark, dingy and ravished by the environmental changes, while the space locations are filled with the beauty you would like to see on Earth. The moments in space look amazing with the harpoon sequences breath taking to watch.

Space Sweepers is truly an enjoyable adventure movie that doesn’t hold back on the bigger emotional impact in the film.

Feb 6 2021

Honesty Weekend (2020) Movie Review

Director: Leslie Thomas

Writer: Leslie Thomas (Screenplay)

Starring: Adam Bartley, Natalie Ceballos, Dioni Michelle Collins, Sabina Gadecki, Lorraine Pascale, Pete Ploszek, Allan Wasserman, Susan Walters, Evan Watkins

Plot: An ensemble relationship comedy about a young couple whose marriage is in crisis. Their therapist prescribes a weekend of total honesty – the same weekend they’re going to the country with close friends for a blowout good time.

Runtime: 1 Hour 30 Minutes

There may be spoilers in the rest of the review

Story: Honesty Weekend starts as we see how Ada (Ceballos) and John (Watkins) are having issues with their marriage with their therapist Dr Sam Digman (Wasserman) suggest they spend a weekend being honest with each other over a weekend, one they are spending with their friends.

As the weekend unfolds the pair start to learn more things about each other, while their friends look to address their own problems, with Harry (Bartley) and Stella (Collins) looking at their own marriage and Nate (Ploszek) looking to start taking things more seriously, with John’s lesbian best friend Delaney (Gadecki) only making things more complicated.

Thoughts on Honesty Weekend

Characters & Performances – John and Ada are the pair who have a child and are starting to feel like they are having marriage problems, they are trying to use the weekend to become more honest with each other to try and fix their marriage, even though they do seem to be the main characters, they do seem to fall into the background of their own story. Harry and Stella are another couple who haven’t had children yet, with Stella wanting, and Harry not sure about yet, they do seem to have a much more normal issue to talk through, with this over the weekend and will get better laughs through this spell too. Nate is the playboy that is known having a string on women waiting for him, but deep down he is waiting for one certain one, he will need to face the fact he isn’t getting younger and this life isn’t going to be going on forever. Delaney is the lesbian best friend of John’s she has arrived after a break up turning the heads of everyone there while she is looking to figure out what she wants next from her life. The whole cast does give us a strong set of performances throughout with each getting that one moment to shine.

Story – The story here follows a couple looking to spend their weekend away with friend being honest with each other, hoping to help fix their marriage problems, which will lead to the rest of the group following suit, with everything looking to improve themselves over the course of the weekend. This story does get to highlight how important communication in relationships is going to make them stronger and the weekend will help. We do seem to jump into fantasy with characters seeing how they want moments to go, over how they actually go. Everything plays out well and by the end everyone involved will have improved themselves after the weekend.

Themes – Honesty Weekend does give us the basics of a romantic comedy, with most of the characters already being paired up, which gives us a chance to see how they will improve the romance in their lives. Nearly the whole film is set in the weekend getaway location, which shows how people will come together to support changes in life too.

Final Thoughts – Honesty Weekend is a comedy about improve relationships to enjoy time together more.

Feb 6 2021

ABC Film Challenge – Oscar Nomination – F – Flatliners (1990) Movie Thoughts

Flatlines comes from the late director Joel Schumacher, with an excellent cast of Kiefer Sutherland, Julia Roberts, Kevin Bacon, William Baldwin and Oliver Platt.

Flatliners follows five medical students Nelson Wright (Sutherland), Rachel Mannus (Roberts), David Labraccio (Bacon), Joe Hurley (Baldwin) and Randy Steckle (Platt) that look to conduct an experiment, which will see them look to kill themselves and be bought back from the dead, to see if there is anything in the afterlife.

Once the first member of the team Nelson returns, he starts experiencing visions from his time in the afterlife, before letting other members of the team go under, each one experiences a different nightmare from their past, one they will need to face head on to overcome, giving them the answers they were looking for in the impossible question, is there any afterlife.

Flatliners brings us an interesting concept that shows how everyone could have a different vision of death, which will see them needing to face the sins of their lives. It gives us an incite into how people will react to something they knew was wrong, that haunts them in their mind, but after getting close to death it comes into their everyday lives. We do keep everything in and around the scientific ideas behind the experiment, without needing to get flashy behind what happens, along with making this happen in an abandoned church, used to symbolising how the resurrection in the bible happened.

With the exceptional cast, we are left to see five of the best young actors of their generation shine, before going onto even bigger careers, each one is perfectly cast, with Sutherland as the one who wants to push things to the limits, Roberts showing the career driven doctor, Bacon showing us the one that will do the right thing, even if it is the wrong time, Baldwin being the sleezy womanizer and Platt being the one that doesn’t want to risk anything.

Rating 5/5