Chong qi di qiu

RUN AWAY AS FAST AS YOU CAN. Start with an obese comedic tech wize, add a little girl and lots of more than ridiculous characters and situations and what you get is unwatchable. Imagery is straight out ofthe lowest level Japanese films from the age of Godzilla and others. Plot is a joke, characters are also just PC representations. If you enjoyed this excuse for a movie, please go back to your second grade class and refrain from leaving any movie reviews. Movies worth viewing does not include this amatuer attempt to cinema in any way. Pass and go straight to the exit when this "film" enters your radar.

Very fun film, i was very sceptical as usual with these chinese films with no other reviews, but my risk paid off!

The film basically follows a father and daughter + some military guys on a journey to complete their mission.

As we all know chinese cgi can sometimes be a bit ropey, that is somewhat true here but its more than serviceable, however some of it is really good and the scenery of the overgrown/postapocalyptic city is the star of the show, i was truley amazed at the visuals.

The plant/monster things were very cool.

The story and how things develop is very cliche and very hollywood which for me isnt a bad thing, why fix what isnt broke right.

Overal a solid action sci/fi post apocalypse film.

The visuals were decent - for 1990's CGI, and I can live with that, but the story, especially the dialogue, was too cliched and overly melodramatic. Even at a mere 89 min runtime, I got bored with the long dragged out and mostly unnecessary scenes. It was just the same cliched and predictable "stretched out to the max" scene after scene. The entire bridge crossing scene felt like it was 20 mins long, and you can easily predict what will happen each step of the way. This entire film could've easily been chopped down to a 20 min short film, and it would've been much more enjoyable. The casting and performances were ok for the most part, some too cheesy and forced for my liking. There are much better disaster films, even dating back to the 80's; this one was overhyped without reason. As much as the trailer looks inviting, the actual film is very lame. It's a very generous 5/10 from me.

There are certain things one expects in Chinese films. Some heavy handed propaganda and some terrible voice actors. This movie has an interesting premise, and could have been done much better. Specially engineered plants have suddenly become sentient, and have taken over the earth, and are feeding on all human and animal life to sustain them. The sets are done well, clearly with CGI, and the plants themselves are done very well, with plant and snake like features, and there is a lot of CGI in this movie. Teams of soldiers are to set out at specific points on the globe, to inject a substance into the roots of the plants to kill them off, and all the many sites must do that at the same time. And we follow one team. But first we meet a man and his daughter. His wife worked developing the plants, and died when they attacked. And he wants to protect his daughter at all costs. The young daughter has the worst possible voice actor and very limited vocabulary and her voice will grate at a person very quickly. A cross between whining and annoying. A team meets up with the father and daughter and slowly, members of the team are killed by the plants. Things start to get very melodramatic, in an excessive manner, which is part of the propaganda with films like this. But the idea is very interesting, as long as one does not ask too many questions. There is a scene with the team and father and daughter in a bus that tells a person those busses can really take a licking.

The storyline in "Restart the Earth" is simplistic, so very, very simplistic. The movie's narrative requires absolutely no involvement from the audience. This is a movie where you just lean back, grab your drink and snacks and watch the predictable and generic movie unfold, whilst the CGI is ensuring that you find some enjoyment in the movie.

It just makes zero sense why a plant would know when people are about to do something that would spell the doom of the plant, and thus be able to track down the humans and attempt to thwart their plans. Lazy writing, sure, but makes for mindless entertainment.

I have to say that the writing in "Restart the Earth" had some of the most cringeworthy and downright disturbing dialogue I have ever stumbled upon. There was a scene where a soldier sits with a little girl, and the soldier says "If your dad was dead, you could be my daughter", and the girl's father is standing right behind the girl. That dialogue was so toe-curling that it was hard to witness.

I wasn't familiar with the cast ensemble in "Restart the Earth", but they definitely had some nice enough talents on the cast list, each actor and actress did a good job with her given role and character in terms of bringing the character and the storyline, however weak it might be, to life on the screen.

Sure, I get why the movie maker would opt to put in a growling sound when you see the plant's long tendrils skulking about, searching for humans. It does add a layer of thrill and excitement to the scene. But come on, seriously? A growling plant? Since when did plants grow vocal chords? It is just downright idiotic and sort of turns what would otherwise be an exciting scene into something laughable.

Visually, then I will say that "Restart the Earth" was good. The CGI rendered plants did, for the most parts of the movie, look realistic and were well-rendered and animated, bringing the plants and their stalks to life in a believeable manner on the screen, if you can abhor from the growling sounds. However, some of the scenes where the characters are moving through the overgrown city just looks downright horrible, you can clearly see that it is green screen, and it is difficult to unsee once you notice it.

A movie such as "Restart the Earth", which clearly is a special effects dependent movie, should strive to have the best of special effects and CGI effects to be properly functional and effective.

Watchable for what it was, "Restart the Earth" is a somewhat hollow movie experience held afloat by the CGI effects. My rating of director Zhenzhao Lin's 2021 movie lands on a five out of ten stars.