Restart the Earth

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.

After almost every movie company continues to bank on remakes of remakes, here we get an original idea, and pretty well implemented! YES, there is still intelligent life on this planet.

And they actually did a real good job. OK, a few of the more tried and true, less original, plot devices were used (dad more worried about saving his daughter), but you have to expect a minor part of every script to do that (and hence not moving to a 7/8)

But lets get to the real things that matter. The acting is rather good. LOTs of CG, maybe a bit too much, but properly supports the storyline. The direction is well done and the script (my usual hot button) is better than fair, maybe even higher than. All in all, this is a production team that should keeping moving forward. You are on target ... unless you start doing remakes or sequels, and then I will not be as positive.

The plants turn against us? The film began in a tedious way. And of course, I knew the film would be about the man trying to survive with his little daughter, as plants growing beating hearts try to swallow them. It looked depressing, slow, annoying, and predictable. Seen on Tubi, the free streaming site, which now has live TV.

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.

I'll mention the positive first:

• better than B level acting (but not better than A level)
• very good plotline (except for CCP typical 1 person sacrifices self for everyone alive)

Now some of the negatives:

• terrible script/lines
• terrible camera work
• even worse CGI.

Now, regarding my subject/head line: The idea of plants attacking humans (including the design of the plants' cannibalistic "heads") comes from the book/movie The Day Of The Triffids".

That old movie wasn't too bad.

This movie is slightly better than that black & white one.

But the book is better than both.

So the current "Featured Review" is wrong.

Mind you, they probably didn't know about that old book/movie.