The Wandering Earth II Movie Review

"Someone’s trying to help us…"

by Mark Costello
Movies & TV Shows Review

12

The Wandering Earth II Movie Review

This is one of those sequels/prequels where you really don’t need to have seen the original film to quickly get up to speed with everything that’s going on.

Not just are there handy recaps liberally scattered throughout this follow up to the $700m disaster porn blockbuster The Wandering Earth that give you all you need to know about the rather desperate situation our planet now finds itself in later this century – the sun is expanding, forcing the human race to create ten thousand ‘earth engines’ to propel the planet out of our solar system to a new home 4.5 light years away – but the film really leans into its own existence as a prequel by announcing events that are about to happen via a series of garish titles overlaying the action at a multitude of points across the film (“27 minutes until Lunar Crisis” is just one such spoilerific proclamation).

Movies & TV Shows Review

42

Netflix's The Wandering Earth Movie Review

Netflix's The Wandering Earth Movie Review

by Cas Harlow ·
Like some monolithic blend of Armageddon and Interstellar, China's epic blockbuster adaptation of The Wandering Earth goes BIG on sci-fi, and makes its UK debut on Netflix with Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos to help it blow you away.  
7

And yet watching the first film (which is currently streaming on Netflix) will definitely help you plug into and navigate through the same insanely po-faced tone and, more importantly, prepare you for Gwo’s penchant for stealing wholesale from every single disaster and sci-fi blockbuster from the last thirty years, that continues here. Because for those who saw the first film and enjoyed it’s obvious but fun ‘spot the reference’ (Moonfall’s planet destroying gravitational plot – the travelling planet got caught in Jupiter’s atmosphere; Geostorm’s character structure of plucky youngsters on the earths surface and grizzled old sacrificial la… I mean heroes on an orbiting space station helping and hindering in equal measure; The Day After Tomorrow’s frozen world peril and Armageddon’s sense of deranged lunacy to any and all of its ‘science’ and action), get your pens and paper ready because this follow up takes the game to a whole new level…

... plot beats that make Roland Emmerich’s Moonfall look like a scientific documentary

Flashing back several decades before events of the first film, we follow the aftershocks of the discover that the earth is doomed. Opening in the early days of the global response to this existential threat, we see mankind galvanise in its response and begin to prepare for its tentative steps towards the building of these enormous engines to help propel the planet out of harms way. The only returning cast member from the previous film, Jing Wu, is now training to take a role on the in-construction orbiting space station that will act as a weighbridge between the earth and the moon, connected to the planet by a complex space bridge. However, not everyone shares the belief that this is the only way for mankind to survive… others believe a more esoteric evolution for human kind is the way forward: shying away from actual life and turning to a digital one, memories surviving forever in the digital realm. And these beliefs prompt acts of terrorism on a global scale that threaten the entirety of our species, with the doomsday clock already ticking down…

This opening act is a superb example of how to establish a complex and labyrinthine landscape and cast of characters around a taut and wonderfully structured set piece. These first forty mins are a flurry of exposition that very quickly gets out of the way of a beautifully constructed terrorist attack that sees an army of flying drones engage with a squadron of manned fighters, while above them, a small group of trainees try and prevent a clutch of suicide bombers from destroying the space bridge while en route to the orbiting station. Its stunning design and VFX work compliments tight but energetic editing that keeps all the characters clearly in focus while servicing both storylines and a plethora of gorgeously paced and visually arresting action beats perfectly. There’s even some humour, something sadly missing entirely from the first film, injected that also cleverly introduces this film’s broader and more interesting notion of the human and societal impact and cost of these significant events.

The Wandering Earth II

The fact that all you’re thinking is ‘it’s the beginning of Ad Astra meets the end of Independence Day’ is neither here nor there…

…because the film’s second act segues into something very different. We’re introduced to bona fide international film star Andy Lau (Infernal Affairs, House of Flying Daggers) – again the star power and honed acting chops was also something missing from the first film – helping establish the earth engine tests on the moon. But instead of focussing on ridiculous action beats, Gwo slows things right down as this second act begins to further explore the ideologies of those terrorists and the philosophy of the digital life. It's heady stuff, nicely drawn with a familial intimacy as Lau has lost a daughter who he has kept alive in digital form and is desperate to enable her to continue to evolve and have a ‘full life’. While the main plot line is never forgotten during this time, the backdrop to even the most basic of conversations still an expansive moonscape or a dizzying futuristic bunker, it’s a fascinating change of pace for both films. Lau carries the weight of his loss as well as we know he can and his storyline is nicely juxtaposed with that of Wu, back on earth now and struggling with his own impending family tragedy, further enforcing the gulf between the physical and digital yet also focussing on the commonality of what it means to be ‘alive’ and the lengths people will go to to preserve it. This is further underpinned by continued political discussions that attempt to try and link these very personal stories with the global scale of the rest of Gwo’s film. However, this element isn’t entirely successful due to the overt propaganda machine it blatantly is – the Chinese delegation at the new version of the United Nations is the only one that has any sense of logic, calm or basic decency; and whilst this is something that Hollywood films have also been doing for decades, here it feels much more a product of political machinations as opposed to poor screenwriting… however it still manages to add some serious weight to the intellectual discussion being held across this handful of its characters.

By this time, we’re one hundred minutes into the near three hour run time and with the signposting of impending events already mentioned (that oddly actually help anchor the sprawling plot and cast of literally hundreds of characters around these pivotal moments), we know what’s coming… and sadly the film’s tone and almost its complete being lurches to match the events that play out in the film’s final act. We’re suddenly introduced to an entire new film’s worth of plot in its final hour, splintering into multiple story strands that take flight with such speed that all narrative beats are over before they’ve even begun. Utterly ridiculous logic bombs are dropped in the wake of the heaving narrative as we are expected to believe plot beats that make Roland Emmerich’s Moonfall (yes... again) now look like a scientific documentary. It's derivative, it's wholly unnecessary – there was more than enough good work done in the first two hours for the film to have ended then – and more importantly, its encroaching dullness starts to bristle and even annoy.

... We’re suddenly introduced to an entire new film’s worth of plot in its final hour

It's such a shame as this third act features such obvious action beats that have none of the style or wow factor of the opening act, while the much more interesting explorations of the digital life plot strand are completely jettisoned in favour of a devastatingly rote set of story and emotional plods that make the end of Armageddon look like a Ken Loach jam. Even worse is that there are nuggets dropped of much more interesting storylines involving messages from the future and the past and of a link to someone or something watching and helping that, come the film’s conclusion, seem to be nothing more than a hook for future films in the franchise.

It's three hour run time is simply far too long (much like this review), the acting outside of a handful of its primary Asian cast is utterly dreadful and while the VFX work remains mostly exemplary, unlike the first film, here it's not enough to save the film, its final act being so damaging to the whole that it manages to unravel the superb spectacle of its first hour and the interesting social explorations and hard sci-fi themes of its second.

Trinity CineAsia presents The Wandering Earth II in UK & Irish cinemas from 27th January

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