The Wandering Earth - Movie Review

China has entered the Space Race. Aside from recent reports about a moon landing (widely considered to be a hoax), China certainly has technology worthy of space. I was surprised to see an unknown Chinese film playing at AMC theaters, in iMax 3D, no less. When I checked IMDb, the ratings for The Wandering Earth were sitting at an incredible 8/10. The film made 75 million dollars in just three days release in China. With all the hype surrounding this film, I had to see it in iMax 3D.

The Wandering Earth is a major undertaking. It is a big film in many ways. The money spent on this film is evident in the cinematography. Unfortunately, it is like any other Hollywood big budget formula film. Hackneyed, derivative and unoriginal. Even laughable at times. The film is based on a science fiction book by Chinese author Liu Cixin, who has an enormous following. I am guessing in this case, the book is better. It enjoys more than four stars out of five at goodreads, which I tend to trust a bit more than the ratings at IMDb. The story was adapted to screenplay by five unknown writers who, collectively, had exactly one prior writing credit to their names. For four of these writers, this was a first effort. It showed. The characters were not fully developed and the dialogue was cheesy at times. The film reminded me a lot of Geostorm which was equally big and equally bad.

Liu Peiqiang (Wu Jing) has been selected to travel to the international space station. It is part of an international effort to save the Earth from a pending solar explosion. The earth has been retrofitted with numerous engines, mostly at the equator, which will stop the rotation of the earth and move the earth to a new orbit light years away. The journey will take 2500 years. Because the earth will no longer be rotating, there will be massive flooding. And moving away from the sun will create massive cold and chaos. For this reason, a lottery is conducted to choose citizens that will be located in cities beneath the giant engines. These cities will house the workers who will maintain the engines during the 2500 year journey. Because Liu has been selected to serve on the space station, he is permitted to allow two people to enter the refuge. He chooses his father, Han Zi'ang (Ng Man-tat) and his son, Liu Qi (Qu Chuxiao).

Nearly twenty years pass. Ltcol Qi is serving his last day on the space station, preparing to return to the earth and be reunited with his family. His family now also includes a daughter, Han Duoduo (Zhao Jinmai) who was rescued and adopted by Qi's father. Duoduo and Qi have managed to sneak up to the surface of earth in anticipation of LtCol Qi's return. They commandeer a truck and end up in jail before being pressed into service to help save the planet. As earth passes Jupiter, the gravitational pull begins to change the earth's trajectory, setting it on a collision course with earth. With LtCol Qi doing everything in his power on the space station, and Qi, Duoduo and a team of soldiers doing everything they can on terra firma, the fate of the earth hangs in the balance.

Aside from the obvious issues with the writing, there were some issues with the casting. It wasn't bad. I liked the actors okay, but some of them were a bit flat. Part of that was writing, but part was also the performances. They felt a bit cardboard at times. What I enjoyed about this film was the visual aspects. The film is big and it spent quite a bit of money delivering an earth in space. Okay, there are some shots that seem a bit campy. But most of the action happens in elaborate sets or carefully constructed CGI that felt seamless. The film was well put together. It is too bad they wasted a great visual effort on a film that didn't care enough to develop characters and deliver engaging dialogue. If you merely like big budget visually appealing films, this one delivers. But you won't get much else. I think the author of the book might feel cheated. I am sure his characters were rendered with far greater care than this film delivered.

The Wandering Earth is unrated. I am guessing the MPAA would give this film a PG-13 rating. The film is pretty tame, but there is some violence and death. Most of the violence is not gory, but there are plenty of tense situations. I don't recall any profanity, but there may have been some mild language. There is no nudity or sexual content. The Australian version of our MPAA is the only rating I can find and they have this film rated PG. I can go with that. There isn't a lot of objectionable material here. The film is a bit long at two hours and five minutes.

The Wandering Earth takes what was likely a compelling work of science fiction and managed to make it standard Hollywood. I am guessing they did the book a disservice. The film doesn't take the time to develop characters, working instead on delivering big scenes, tension and visual appeal. I would have loved sharper dialogue and less predictability. I wanted to be engaged by the characters, but felt like I was being told who they were instead of being shown. The film had great potential but barely scratched the surface. Disappointing. 5.5/10. Nowhere near the 8/10 on IMDb. Someone is monkeying with the IMDb ratings.

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