The Wandering Earth II

Official Australian release date: 22/1/23. Viewed: 28/1/23.
Director: Frant Gwo
Actors: Jing Wu, Zhi Wang, Andy Lau, Yanmanzi Zhu
Genre: Action / Sci-Fi
Rating: M

 

 

‘The Wandering Earth II’ is a prequel to the Chinese sci-fi film, that comes almost 4 years to the day after the original. I didn’t even know they were making another, so this was a nice surprise. I’ll certainly look forward to a third one! This shows the planet-wide cooperation/politics needed to deal with the impending disaster of the sun imploding and takes place over number of decades from the 2030s-2070s. The plot remains similar to the first, showing the engineering problems humanity is trying to overcome to literally move the Earth and the moon.

There’s a few key character groups and storylines we follow, with perhaps the most confusing centring on 505A/W, which is an AI reminiscent of HAL from ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’, but it does set the scene for sequels. The story there follows Tu Yuheng (Lau), his daughter and Ma Zhao (Ning). The other plot follows Hao Xiaoxi (Zhu) and the politics between the countries. Then there’s Liu Peiqiang (Wu) and Han Duoduo (Wang) and their astronaut journey/love story.

While some of it is very fast-paced and jumps a bit all-over-the-shop, in general, the scale of the CGI and action are thrilling and extremely well executed. Maybe slightly too long at 2 hours 45min, but there’s not too many dull moments and each new scene poses new challenges for the humans to overcome. Satisfying ending, with some touching moments near the end.

Overall: More hope-filled grand-scale sci-fi.

Gav's Rating: 3.5 stars.