Saturday, February 23, 2019

"The Wandering Earth"

 ½ 

This is some seriously bonkers stuff. The sun is exploding, and Earth is going to perish, but mankind puts aside its geopolitical battles to build 10,000 propulsion engines that will first stop the planet from spinning and then send it careening light years to a new home in the solar system.

This massively scaled Chinese epic proves one thing: Hollywood no longer has the lock on overblown CGI-driven storytelling. The Wandering Earth careens so loudly and rapidly from one moment to the next that Michael Bay would love it.  It never pauses for a breath, or for logic. At one point, I think, a ragtag team of Earth savers drives in a few hours across frozen oceans from Shanghai to Manila, then to Sulawesi in Indonesia, where they are to deliver a -- okay, sorry, I don't know.  The Wandering Earth couldn't prevent a wandering mind.

The American version of the film in no way benefits from unintentionally hilarious subtitles, especially when heroic astronauts call each other "Bro" and a truck's guidance system warns of "tears for families" if it's driven unsafely.

But subtitles aside, much of what happens is incomprehensible, and the extended finale takes place in so many different locations simultaneously that keeping track becomes and exercise in futility. The point of The Wandering Earth is mostly to watch things blow up, which they do, frequently and, as far as these things go, well.



Viewed February 23, 2019 -- AMC Sunset 5

1130

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