Based on a short story by Liu Cixin, director Frant Gwo's "The Wandering Earth" watches as humanity straps hundreds of giant engines onto the Earth in an effort to propel it out of our solar system and so escape an expanding/exploding Sun.
The film begins with the first of many missteps: a long info-dump which "briefs" us on humanity's attempts to construct giant engines, battle catastrophic climate change, launch vital stations, ships and satellites into space, and create massive underground bunkers for humanity to live in. A better director/writer would omit all this, and let the audience figure out the rules of the film's world as things unfold. Compare, for example, how better science fiction tales (Miyazaki's "Nausicaa", James Cameron's "Terminator", George Lucas' "Star Wars", George Miller "Fury Road" etc) parcel out information and engage in subtle world building.
The film's second misstep follows: a rambling first act in which our heroes (photogenic young Chinese adults, of course) barter with hoodlums, acquire special "space suits", steal trucks and bribe prison wardens. Again, a better director/writer would jettison all these scenes, condensing them into something more streamlined and/or opening the film at a later point.
But such clunkiness, a lack-of-grace, and a fondness for cliches, epitomizes "The Wandering Earth". Essentially a 1990s-early-2000s Hollywood apocalyptic movie ("Deep Impact", "Independence Day", "Armageddon", "The Core", "The Day After Tomorrow", "2012," "Transformers" etc, with a couple subplots lifted from Danny Boyle's "Sunshine") made in China and produced by Chinese financiers, this is a dumb, loud, kitschy, garish affair. Every scene is incompetently directed, Frant Gwo's employment of close, medium or long shots wholly amateurish. His compositional work, use of steady cams and crane shots are similarly thoughtless. This is art for audiences with no knowledge of good film language. It's also art which appeals to, not only post-literate, but post cine-literate audiences; "The Wandering Earth" is one of the most financially successful films in world history.
Unsurprisingly for a film about a giant planet breaking free of our solar system, "The Wandering Earth" makes heavy use of CGI. Virtually every scene is awash with special effects, most of which resemble washed out video game cut-scenes, every effect unconvincingly integrated with its live-actors, objects and locations. Despite its massive budget, there's a tasteless, cheap, schlocky look to the film, science-fiction meets Bling and graffiti.
As a work of politics, the film fares worse; like "Interstellar", this is unconsciously a hymn to inflated egos; humanity's eco-systems are under threat, and so instead of doing the hard work to build better, fairer, cleaner socio-economic systems, mores and traditions, we are instead forced by plot contrivances to jump ship (the mantra of climate denialists are made true; solar activity, not man, causes climate change!). "Interstellar" saw us sell out Earth for finding a new home-world. "The Wandering Earth" sees us pack up our homes and jump to another solar system. Both unconsciously worship to a certain egomania, fetishizing technology, industrialization, massive levels of labor, waste, production, energy expenditure and quasi-nationalistic faith ("I choose to hope!" one character proclaims). The costs of all this, be they on bodies or biospheres, are shunted aside, in favor for Maverick Heroes and their Magical Technologies.
Beyond this, the film fails as an action movie or thriller. None of its set pieces generate excitement, and most are silly, featuring characters with huge miniguns (why?), odd science (Jupiter experiences a "gravity spike"?) and much forced sentimentality. Its score, by Roc Chen, is mostly generic.
Incidentally, the film was based on a novella by Liu Cixin, one of the few Chinese science fiction authors to have mainstream success in the west. The rise of Chinese science fiction is itself no coincidence; historically, when a nation becomes industrialized and begins asserting itself on the international stage, science fiction as a national genre begins to blossom, together with various concomitant fantasies about technology and mastery. Think France and Britain in the late 1800s and early 1900s - Wells and Verne et al - and America in the 1940s, with its SF Golden Age. Smaller nations tend to have little interest in literary science fiction, and gravitate toward the genre of Magical Realism.
1/10 - Worth no viewings.
The film begins with the first of many missteps: a long info-dump which "briefs" us on humanity's attempts to construct giant engines, battle catastrophic climate change, launch vital stations, ships and satellites into space, and create massive underground bunkers for humanity to live in. A better director/writer would omit all this, and let the audience figure out the rules of the film's world as things unfold. Compare, for example, how better science fiction tales (Miyazaki's "Nausicaa", James Cameron's "Terminator", George Lucas' "Star Wars", George Miller "Fury Road" etc) parcel out information and engage in subtle world building.
The film's second misstep follows: a rambling first act in which our heroes (photogenic young Chinese adults, of course) barter with hoodlums, acquire special "space suits", steal trucks and bribe prison wardens. Again, a better director/writer would jettison all these scenes, condensing them into something more streamlined and/or opening the film at a later point.
But such clunkiness, a lack-of-grace, and a fondness for cliches, epitomizes "The Wandering Earth". Essentially a 1990s-early-2000s Hollywood apocalyptic movie ("Deep Impact", "Independence Day", "Armageddon", "The Core", "The Day After Tomorrow", "2012," "Transformers" etc, with a couple subplots lifted from Danny Boyle's "Sunshine") made in China and produced by Chinese financiers, this is a dumb, loud, kitschy, garish affair. Every scene is incompetently directed, Frant Gwo's employment of close, medium or long shots wholly amateurish. His compositional work, use of steady cams and crane shots are similarly thoughtless. This is art for audiences with no knowledge of good film language. It's also art which appeals to, not only post-literate, but post cine-literate audiences; "The Wandering Earth" is one of the most financially successful films in world history.
Unsurprisingly for a film about a giant planet breaking free of our solar system, "The Wandering Earth" makes heavy use of CGI. Virtually every scene is awash with special effects, most of which resemble washed out video game cut-scenes, every effect unconvincingly integrated with its live-actors, objects and locations. Despite its massive budget, there's a tasteless, cheap, schlocky look to the film, science-fiction meets Bling and graffiti.
As a work of politics, the film fares worse; like "Interstellar", this is unconsciously a hymn to inflated egos; humanity's eco-systems are under threat, and so instead of doing the hard work to build better, fairer, cleaner socio-economic systems, mores and traditions, we are instead forced by plot contrivances to jump ship (the mantra of climate denialists are made true; solar activity, not man, causes climate change!). "Interstellar" saw us sell out Earth for finding a new home-world. "The Wandering Earth" sees us pack up our homes and jump to another solar system. Both unconsciously worship to a certain egomania, fetishizing technology, industrialization, massive levels of labor, waste, production, energy expenditure and quasi-nationalistic faith ("I choose to hope!" one character proclaims). The costs of all this, be they on bodies or biospheres, are shunted aside, in favor for Maverick Heroes and their Magical Technologies.
Beyond this, the film fails as an action movie or thriller. None of its set pieces generate excitement, and most are silly, featuring characters with huge miniguns (why?), odd science (Jupiter experiences a "gravity spike"?) and much forced sentimentality. Its score, by Roc Chen, is mostly generic.
Incidentally, the film was based on a novella by Liu Cixin, one of the few Chinese science fiction authors to have mainstream success in the west. The rise of Chinese science fiction is itself no coincidence; historically, when a nation becomes industrialized and begins asserting itself on the international stage, science fiction as a national genre begins to blossom, together with various concomitant fantasies about technology and mastery. Think France and Britain in the late 1800s and early 1900s - Wells and Verne et al - and America in the 1940s, with its SF Golden Age. Smaller nations tend to have little interest in literary science fiction, and gravitate toward the genre of Magical Realism.
1/10 - Worth no viewings.