Verdict
Summary
Beyond White Space has impressive visuals and a cool concept but the characters are all very bland and forgettable making it lack heart.
Plot: 2150 A.D. The Essex, a deep space fishing vessel for industry giant, AmberCorp, is ready to make its final harvest of the season. The ship brushes with a rare creature, mammoth in size and highly territorial. Could this be the same leviathan that killed Richard and Owen’s father? To make matters worse, a vicious band of scavengers intercept the transmission and infiltrate the Essex, leaving them with nothing. With no cargo and few supplies, the captain makes a daring decision, they will venture into uncharted territory, playing for keeps, to capture the creature for a large black market take.
Review: I thought Beyond White Space looked like a rather interesting concept from the trailer so last night I finally checked it out on Netflix and although it’s not an amazing movie I thought it had some impressive visuals and I also think Holt McCallany is one of the coolest people working today. As he gets older he reminds me more of Michael Pare and has that similar deep voice and commanding presence.
Beyond White Space is essentially a mixture of several stories including Moby Dick, Alien and Event Horizon so it isn’t exactly new but I just enjoyed the idea of what is essentially a giant whale creature the flies through space. McCallany plays the Ahab character Richard Bentley who is obsessed with finding and killing the creature known as Tin Lung (or Tien Lung) as it was responsible for the death of his father years earlier.
The visuals are the strongest aspect of the movie due the fact that director Ken Locsmandi is a veteran of working with visual effects. There is a real sense of scale when Ten Lun is on screen battling the spaceships (that still use harpoons) although I did find some scenes were too darkly lit so it was hard to make out what was going on.
My biggest issue with Beyond White Space was the lack of anyone to root for; Richard’s obsession makes him ignore the wishes of his own crew and we have no reason to care if he lives or dies and I found that was the case for all the characters. They are all pretty forgettable and stereotypical so you generally feel nothing while watching; by the time the end credits roll you’ll be left as cold as space itself.
At around 90 minutes it is at least pretty well paced with a few impressive set-pieces and it’s never dull but I only watched it last night and I’ve already forgotten most of it.
Overall, Beyond White Space is visually stunning but lacks anyone to care about which is a shame as there are some interesting ideas. If you’re looking for some fun escapist sci-fi for an evening you could do worse but there are other better movies you could watch instead.