The Wandering Earth II review: a sci-fi blockbuster takes a dark turn

Filmmaker Frant Gwo has literally gone global to successfully emulate the big-budget global blockbusters most closely associated with Hollywood productions. 2019 wandering earthis one of China’s highest-grossing sci-fi disaster adventures of all time, set in a futuristic world where the Earth has been ejected from orbit by a thruster rocket implanted to avert a solar disaster. Astronauts must maneuver a spaceship planet toward a new home, but the surface freezes and its dwindling inhabitants swarm underground.

The film’s enormous scope helped it become a blockbuster in China, although it fell short of being a global phenomenon. It later premiered on Netflix.) Wandering LandExtensive and sometimes complex world-building drawn from the short stories of three body problem Author Liu Cixin, left plenty of room for follow-up. But Gwo must have been attached to a less icy version of his home planet. Wandering Earth IIIn addition to its debut in China, .

Set over decades leading up to launch from Earth’s orbit (made possible by thousands of fusion-powered engines around the world), the prequel uses a lot of the grab-bag maximalism of its predecessor. There’s a mad scientist who seems to extol the virtues of a “digital you who can live forever”, an AI-based scheme touted as an alternative way to survive the coming apocalypse. (I’m not sure, but the idea seems to have been to upload everyone into a Matrix-esque digital world and leave the real world alone.) A group of digitally pro-terrorists attacked a giant space elevator, causing explosions and low-gravity. A fistfight erupted and found that 91% of Americans oppose taking the Earth out of orbit because they think the problems 100 years from now aren’t worth solving. (“The world is not on the side of reality,” laments one official.)

Expansive results initially don’t look up When Independence Day: Resurgence, but as the film enters its second and then third hours, it brings us even more familiar snippets of other films. (Runs 173 minutes including credits and multiple additions.) so much movie Wandering Earth II, and so many disasters, countdowns and Cylons go around. The film has the potential to set a huge number of records in subtitled locations, timelines, characters, and possibly hardware.His Liu Peiqiang (Wu Jing), the astronaut in the first film ) backstory is told. So does his one in the computer system.The writing team steals bits interstellar think in tandem with moon fall Next. (“The moon will collapse in 179 hours.”)

But perhaps the most ridiculous is Wandering Earth II How categorically stupid a lot of it is. Though there are moments of absurdity, the film is often surprisingly grim, admirably ambitious, but of questionable utility. I am using a palette. The saddest story it weaves over the decades is about his Tu Hengyu (Andy Lau), a scientist grieving the loss of his wife and daughter, and his young child’s digital echoes. I’m sure it can be tweaked to a more complete AI consciousness for him. (There is a parallel here with Yeon Sang-ho’s subject matter. JUNG_Ea more fleeting and manageable sci-fi movie to premiere on Netflix Wandering Earth II Lumber to the theater. )

The dead family story isn’t the only obligatory pause in the pathos, either. At the same time, he’s trying to secure one of the limited tickets to the Underground City.

Image: Well Go USA

In many ways, the Gwo carries this weight more gracefully than the modern maestro of form. Unlike Roland Emmerich (whose work the Frightening Earth series generally resembles) and Michael Bay (whose work he does). Armageddon It feels like part of the DNA of this film), Gwo isn’t afraid of a quiet moment in the bombshell. do not nervously cram. Some of his images have an eerie, almost mournful beauty – even more so than the previous film, which found some poetic imagery in Cinzia-looking special effects.

Still, none of this keeps fatigue from setting in for nearly three hours. Can you? The audience knows that the Earth survives. Wandering Earth II To the new character torture device: The planet keeps moving, but these poor suckers can still go through the wringer.

That’s clearly not Gwo’s intention. Wandering Land The prequels are stranger than the previous films, and at the same time more emotionally grounded. Yet even at this length, with its eye-popping moments and incredible characters, it feels like it lacks some key humanity. It provides something similar to sensations. Extinction horror and survival catharsis, but on a larger canvas. Maybe that model doesn’t work anymore. Just as it was made skillfully, Wandering Earth II It feels like immersion therapy for the modern-day onslaught of apocalyptic news from around the world.

Wandering Earth II It will be released in theaters on Sunday, January 22nd, the first day of Chinese New Year. Check movie sites for the location.