The Wandering Earth II

The Wandering Earth II (2023)

Runtime: An interminable 173 minutes

Directed by: Frant Gwo

Starring: Andy Lau, Wu Jing, Li Xuejian, Sha Yi, Ning Li

From: A staggering amount of production companies

Yesterday I learned that China can make a blockbuster as braindead, lacking in soul, charmless, as one-note and as agonizing as the worst modern Hollywood crap I usually avoid. A few years ago on an IMAX screen was a showing of the first Wandering Earth where moi was the only white person in attendance. A Chinese movie w/ a 2.55:1 aspect ratio where the Sun is about to die so Earth IS MOVED TO ANOTHER STAR VIA 10,000 ROCKETS; don’t tell Neil deGrasse Tyson the plot, not even as a joke—he apparently can’t take those any longer. As bonkers as that premise is, the movie was goofy cliché fun so when I heard the sequel was a thing a few days before it was released, a theatrical viewing was almost expected from me.

It's a crying shame then that this was almost an entirely joyless experience. The fact that this was a prequel was a mystery to me until the realization hit a few minutes in. Trying to explain the bonkers premise and how it was all put together--was that really the best idea? For certain, I did not need to see all the people (led by the Americans, of course) against the scheme, or how they were somehow able to pull off a highly complex convoluted plot involving hacking to cause irreparable damage to the project. One of those henchmen looking like a larger and more buff Vin Diesel did make me chuckle but otherwise this was just a miserable slog which did NOT need to be almost 3 hours long. Why this has a changing aspect ratio where it usually is 2.76:1 as if it’s the Charlton Heston Ben-Hur is beyond my understanding, or why it switches between that and what looked like 2.35:1 often.

The biggest problem isn’t what I listed above, the action and battle scenes best described as “busy”, how the plot was stupid in an insulting way instead of a fun way like the first-although that was a major problem-or even the nationalistic moments. It was how miserable this all was-what I mean is characters acting like A-holes for no reason, or aggressive rude comments that came completely out of nowhere & were unwarranted, or just sheer hatred for each other. See what I mean when I say that this wasn’t fun like the original? II is full of misery, tragic moments, death, moments gone wrong… when this happens with characters that are whisper-thin in terms of personality, why am I going or supposed to care? I sure as heck didn’t care about that or enjoy how this had even more explanatory dialogue than a Chris Nolan joint.

The Wandering Earth II just rubbed me the wrong way, to a staggering degree that was not expected beforehand. Most will probably find more enjoyment out of this claptrap than I did.