Ambitious, entertaining sensory overload
With its epic scope and impressive production values, The Wandering Earth 2 ambitiously world-builds on its predecessor, delivering Hollywood-level special effects, action-packed spectacle, and dual storylines featuring Wu Jing and Andy Lau.
Unfortunately, the film is dampened by sequelitis and predominantly focused on outdoing the previous film's production values. Director Frant Gwo throws everything on screen to the point of sensory overload.
It is still fun popcorn entertainment; fans of the original will appreciate the expanded mythos, but with no breathing room, it buckles under the weight of its ambitions.
The story is a prequel to 2019's The Wandering Earth. The Sun's gradual expansion into a red giant threatens to engulf Earth in 100 years. Countries submit plans of action, including the Digital Life Project, which proposes the digitized preservation of human consciousness, and, the Moving Mountain project, which proposes installing thousands of ion engines to propel the Earth into a new solar system.
The United Earth Government chooses the Moving Mountain project, spurring terrorist attacks from Digital Life supporters. UEG astronaut Liu Peiqiang and his team race against time to restore the world's faith in the Moving Mountain project.
The mission is threatened by Digital Life engineer Tu Hengyu, who seeks to prolong his dead daughter Yaya's digital consciousness after losing her in a car accident. The construction of the Moving Mountain engines is interrupted when Tu uploads his daughter's consciousness into the network.
First off, as seen above, there's too much plot. The story covers an entire TV season's worth and the plot strands are so tightly interwoven, that cutting one thing out would mean cutting out an entire story arc.
The fast editing with blink-and-you-miss-it subtitles weakens the dramatic impact of what's happening as the film never gives time for the drama to properly breathe. This could have easily been two movies.
Wu Jing is a charismatic leading man and with every new movie, is getting better at manipulating his star power and fitting himself in whatever scene he's in.
Andy Lau gets to flex his acting muscles playing against type as the film's antagonist Tu, but distinctly not a villain. Lau plays out the humanity of the situation and keeps his character sympathetic.
The two stars share one scene together and it left a lot to be desired in terms of having human moments. I was hoping for a Blade Runner-esque philosophical debate between the two leads, one arguing for human life and the other for digital consciousness.
As someone who was sad for two weeks when he passed away, it was fulfilling to see the CGI Ng Man Tat cameo. It struck me still seeing Uncle Tat, as short as it lasted.
The film was so overwhelming that I tired out during the 3rd act. Everything just blurred together into one vague memory. It was just a lot of stuff happening and I honestly forgot a lot of it when I walked out.
I am invested in the Wandering Earth world and would happily watch a third installment. However, the filmmakers don't need to do everything bigger. Everything is big enough.
Unfortunately, the film is dampened by sequelitis and predominantly focused on outdoing the previous film's production values. Director Frant Gwo throws everything on screen to the point of sensory overload.
It is still fun popcorn entertainment; fans of the original will appreciate the expanded mythos, but with no breathing room, it buckles under the weight of its ambitions.
The story is a prequel to 2019's The Wandering Earth. The Sun's gradual expansion into a red giant threatens to engulf Earth in 100 years. Countries submit plans of action, including the Digital Life Project, which proposes the digitized preservation of human consciousness, and, the Moving Mountain project, which proposes installing thousands of ion engines to propel the Earth into a new solar system.
The United Earth Government chooses the Moving Mountain project, spurring terrorist attacks from Digital Life supporters. UEG astronaut Liu Peiqiang and his team race against time to restore the world's faith in the Moving Mountain project.
The mission is threatened by Digital Life engineer Tu Hengyu, who seeks to prolong his dead daughter Yaya's digital consciousness after losing her in a car accident. The construction of the Moving Mountain engines is interrupted when Tu uploads his daughter's consciousness into the network.
First off, as seen above, there's too much plot. The story covers an entire TV season's worth and the plot strands are so tightly interwoven, that cutting one thing out would mean cutting out an entire story arc.
The fast editing with blink-and-you-miss-it subtitles weakens the dramatic impact of what's happening as the film never gives time for the drama to properly breathe. This could have easily been two movies.
Wu Jing is a charismatic leading man and with every new movie, is getting better at manipulating his star power and fitting himself in whatever scene he's in.
Andy Lau gets to flex his acting muscles playing against type as the film's antagonist Tu, but distinctly not a villain. Lau plays out the humanity of the situation and keeps his character sympathetic.
The two stars share one scene together and it left a lot to be desired in terms of having human moments. I was hoping for a Blade Runner-esque philosophical debate between the two leads, one arguing for human life and the other for digital consciousness.
As someone who was sad for two weeks when he passed away, it was fulfilling to see the CGI Ng Man Tat cameo. It struck me still seeing Uncle Tat, as short as it lasted.
The film was so overwhelming that I tired out during the 3rd act. Everything just blurred together into one vague memory. It was just a lot of stuff happening and I honestly forgot a lot of it when I walked out.
I am invested in the Wandering Earth world and would happily watch a third installment. However, the filmmakers don't need to do everything bigger. Everything is big enough.
- ObsessiveCinemaDisorder
- Mar 1, 2023