THE WANDERING EARTII

[Drunk Monk]

I celebrated Lunar New Year by going out to the movies. I was shocked to see that this was playing downtown and just could not pass up the chance to see this LNY release on LNY. What a great! I was just me and about a half dozen Chinese UCSC exchange students. We were comfortably spread out. Perfect.

This is definitely a big screen experience - shot in IMAX and some to the scenes and effects are a wonder to behold. It’s a thick movie however - the prequel so we know what will happen to some degree. This takes place when earth first launches the rockets, and there were so many complications. There are three major competing storylines: 1 is Wu Jing, and ace pilot whose wife is dying of cancer. 2 is Mission Control - the stalwart PRC leader and his squad and international military leaders - a tough Russian and a really loud American who’s constantly shouting complaints. 3 is Andy Lau who’s working to develop a way of preserving minds in a computer program (oddly reminiscent of Jung_E last night). 

Wu Jing’s tale is the most connected to the original. It reveals a lot about why he does what he does in part 1. And he gets a hand-2-hand fight scene in zero g no less. That’s early. There’s a terrorist plot to end the wandering earth plan which results in a gratuitous space Jet v drone dogfight that’s ridiculous yet spectacular. 

The Mission Control arc is a lot of countdowns and political disputes. They have two possible plans - the wandering earth and the other one about storing everyone’s brain in computers (this has a name - Life something - I lost it in translation). The apocalypse plays out brutally as we see major metropolises succumb to tidal waves and meteors. 

Andy Lau’s story seemed absurd at first (the whole moving earth with rockets is absurd but it’s the basic premise so it just must be accepted if there’s any enjoyment to be had here). But this arc got trippy and slightly thought provoking, not so much like a sci-fi ‘what if?’ More of a ‘does that even work?’ In the end, it got tesseract trippy and I have a soft spot for that. Plus he has a loyal robot dog. At first, it kept replaying scenes with Andy and his daughter, akin to what the original did with Wu Jing and his son, but here, it goes somewhere that almost mind blowing or at least it aspires to blow minds. 

There’s an undertone of teacher/student relationships in all three storylines. I liked that even though it was overdone. The pacing felt a bit uneven. This is a long movie and it feels long - a lot happens. It’s a bit exhausting but I did enjoy it thoroughly. I fell for the sappy heroic ending. It gave me more feels than anticipated.

Cf described the first film as ‘strident’. I’ll say this is ‘strident on steroids’. From a technical standpoint, the effects and sets are awesome. Love me those space suits. From a story standpoint, it’s trying to do so much that it gets muddled. I got lost on what was happening a few times, but it didn’t matter in the end. It came around or it didn’t matter. It was just a treat to be in a movie theater without the obligation of publishing a review. I enjoyed myself.

I’m D00M recommending this for cf because he’s the only one who’s seen the original and it’s decent sci-fi. As for the rest of you, this is the prequel so you could watch this first and if it works for you, watch the original second on Netflix.

[Drunk Monk]

Something I forgot to mention last night - as this film has an international cast, a lot of it is in different languages (they cover for it by referencing simultaneous translators which works - you can hear the translations in the earphones sometimes). During several of the English speaking moments, they drop F bombs. And it's translated as 'freaking' (I think... might have been some other F word). I found that funny.

There's some funny bits in here too, mostly towards the beginning. The Wu Jing Zero G fight has a comedic element. There were a few moments when the rest of the audience was laughing as something I missed, which made me wonder if there was some clever quip in Mandarin that wasn't translating.

[Dr. Ivor Yeti]

I watched the original movie in Netflix last week and thoroughly enjoyed it.

[Drunk Monk]

Seeing THE WANDERING EARTII on the big screen made me wish I say THE WANDERING EARTH on the big screen too. I was skeptical that some of the effects would hold up, but these films were filmed for IMAX. 

However, seeing them both back to back on the big screen would be exhausting.