‘Wandering’ Away
Director Frant Gwo follows up his scifi blockbuster and enters billion-dollar director territory with frantic bombast.
the Wandering EArth II
Director: Frant Gwo • Writer: Frant Gwo, Gong Geer, Yang Zhixue, Ye Ruchang, based on the book by Liu Cixin
Starring: Wu Jing, Andy Lau, Li Xuejian, Sha Yi, Ning Li, Wang Zhi, Andy Friend, Vitalli Makarychev, Clara Lee
China • 2hrs 53mins
Opens Hong Kong February 9 • IIA
Grade: C+
Pop quiz: What happens when you produce a big, glossy CGI-heavy scifi blockbuster that scrounges up US$700 million in box office receipts as well as the kind of international soft power exposure (a Netflix release, y’all) even the likes of Zhang Yimou couldn’t garner? In proper blockbuster fashion you hop that bandwagon for one of those tried and true franchise expanders: The Prequel. So director Frant Gwo’s (Guo Fan) The Wandering Earth II | 流浪地球2 turns the lens on the origin story, as it were, and delves into the events leading up to the Earth’s departure from Sol system we were deep into in 2019’s The Wandering Earth. That film’s bonanza also inspired a budget about three times the size this time around (allegedly in the US$160 million neighbourhood), and a running time about three times as long. Okay, it’s only an hour longer (!) than the original, but it feels three times as long. The Wandering Earth II (The Wandering Eartii if you feel like Fant-four-stic-ing the key art) is a step up from the execrable Moonfall, but the silly glee of the original has been replaced by self-serious messaging, convoluted storytelling and dour, approved geopoliticking. If you want to read a truly great story about the moon crashing into us, go read Neal Stephenson’s Seveneves.
For the record, she can kick ass
Where to start? If you forgot what happened four years ago, get a recap, but suffice it to say The Wandering Earth II has lots of digital de-ageing and unnecessary backstory, plus the appearance of a bona fide Hong Kong movie star for… reasons? The frantic action starts in Gabon, on the site of the United Earth Government’s Moving Mountain Project lab in 2044. The world has united in making a mess of Africa again… still?… and built its space elevator in Libreville to do some tests on an ion engine (I think) that will move Earth out of its orbit, because the sun is about to go red giant. Gotta go! Protesters (who are clearly wrong, right?) who think the project is boneheaded and that humanity’s future is in digital existence, in the Digital Life Project to be exact, sabotage the elevator (it goes to a space station) to prevent the test firing. Saving the day in a protracted, opening act-long action sequence is Liu Peiqiang (Wu Jing), the station chief in Earth but just a trainee astronaut here. Of course, during the terrorist attack he meets Han Duoduo (Wang Zhi, picking up for Zhao Jinmei from Earth because why de-age a chick?), the fellow trainee who becomes his wife and eventual mother to the first film’s smackable main character, Qi.
Damning the torpedoes, Chinese UEG ambassador Zhou Zhezhi (Li Xuejian) proclaims China is going ahead with the MMP test in seven months anyway, because life on Earth is too precious or some such. While this is going on, computer scientists Tu Hengyu (Andy Lau Tak-wah) and his boss Ma Zhao (Ning Li) are working on the 550A, C and W quantum supercomputer (throw in the word “quantum” when you need something to sound really science-y) that will power the MMP. But Tu has a little mad scientist in him because of the family he lost in a car wreck: he wants to use the 550s to bring his daughter back to “life.” Between 2044 and (I want to say) 2058 shit goes sideways on the moon, and we have to nuke it or it will crash into us and ruin the jets on the equator? So old space cowboys (prompted by China and Russian commanders) go blow it up (they get there in about 40 minutes) and off we go to Alpha Centauri. My head hurts just thinking about the rest of the unwieldy plot.
Gwo and his writing crew don’t bother creating people that are interesting, relatable, or empathetic; each is a state-approved cookie-cutter archetype that fulfils a plot point and propels the narrative, and in the case of the women characters give the dudes a reason to dude. Seriously, immediately after Duoduo kicks a space terrorist’s ass the infatuated Peiqiang locks her in a room. To protect her. Even though her help is needed. Because love. Then she gets cancer. The only other female of note is Tu’s dead daughter. Sigh. But aside from its watery characters – among other prominent players are Hao Xiaoxi (Zhu Yanmanzi), the assistant Zhou is grooming to take over his job, Peiqiang’s mentor Zhang Peng (Sha Yi), one of the heroic olds, his Russian pal Andre Graschnov (Vitalli Makarychev), and a pile of poorly dubbed “foreigners”, chief among them Zhou’s American counterpart Mike No Last Name Provided (Andy Friend), and a hilariously flustered mission control boss who speaks like he’s in a 1950s anti-drug PSA. Foreign actors/accents may have been hard to wrangle thanks to COVID restrictions still in place during production, but that doesn’t forgive droopy pacing, the jarringly elastic grasp on time and space, and marginalising the core themes exploring the uneasy relationship between humanity and machinery, and humanity and AI, centralised power, and putting goddamned spoilers on the screen. Why, Frant, why?
To their credit, Gwo & Co are less derivative this time around, and all things being equal the CGI and VFX are strong. There are no more anti-physics, “Nice compositing!” moments than an average Marvel film; there’s just so much movement in any given frame (when it’s not tugging at the “duty above all” heartstrings) the film becomes an exhausting exercise in Spot the Callback. Still, even though The Wandering Earth II leans more into action and gear than celestial wonder, space nerds are going to dig this, rightly so. And before you ask, yes. There is a credit roll stinger and yes. There will be a third. I need a nap just thinking about it. — DEK