White Out

I came across Beyond White Space somewhere on the net, a space opera set far off in the future when the earth is running out of resources and much of human commerce now takes place in the darkest depths of outer space. A crude summary, but it sounded promising and worth a watch. It was not. It's a shame that this film is so sluggish and dim-witted in spirit because it has a convincing, future-grunge look to it and contains, really, an interesting premise that would have made for a smart sci-fi movie. Without giving away anything essential, which is not a hint that readers should visit this sluggish and shuffling enterprise, we have what might have been a space version of "Moby Dick", centering on an obsessed captain endangering his crew in pursuit of a giant creature capable of living in the vacuum of outer space. This creature, incidentally, guards against planetary fortune seekers, stragglers and pirates from entering a fabled part of the outer reaches called White Space, rumored to be an actual Heaven the space creature keeps out of our reach. Again, an interesting premise that gets stepped over by one-dimensional characters, stiff acting, and lead-footed pacing. The film looks great in parts, but there is a claustrophobic feel to the thing that never lets up; you have the feeling of someone shoving their camera phone in peoples faces for ninety minutes or so. That can be effective in the right hands, as I'm thinking of the 1st "Cloverfield" movie, but this is that rare thing, slick incompetence.