The Wandering Earth 2 (2023)

A decent alternative to typical western disaster movie.

A nice prequel with a rather slow act on the drama side but it definitely works after the universe build up. Not your typical western disaster movie where the heroes usually focused on a white group with one or two expendable minorities here and there, rather you get a grand set but you are most looking at the iminent disaster from the chinese point of view.
Effects is on marvel's level but i pretty much think marvel already stuck on first avenger movie level for how many years now?
Music (not song) is grand and I don't know chinese movie actually spend that much time on music.

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An Unnecessary Prequel

Wandering Earth 2 does not pick up at the end of the first movie or even some time later. Instead, it opts to go a couple decades earlier before the lead character of WE2, Liu Pei Qiang, met the mother of the lead character of WE, Liu Qi. WE2 shows us what happened on Earth prior to movie 1 and how the plan to move the planet was initiated and accomplished. The problem with that is that I don't think anyone was really asking.

The story drags, especially around Andy Lau's character, Tu Heng Yu, who perfects the A.I. program. The end of WE2 connects us to the beginning of the first movie and to a comment made by Pei Qiang toward the end of WE. It gave 2001: A Space Odyssey vibes. The movie has excellent graphics. Honestly, my favorite parts of the movie came from the suppporting and guest roles. The Chinese excel at making side conversations interesting (or funny) as opposed to mummbles when you know people are speaking you just don't know what they're saying as with most movies. It's an anime trope that works very well in a scifi movie where there is a lot of action and movements going on simultaneously.

The cast is good. There are little scenes that stand out and gestures by some actors. Li Xue Jian plays a politician and his facial expressions and small gestures gave life to every scene he was in. There's a scene where he is just clapping, but the way he claps & his facial expression speaks volumes. That's an actor! When you can command a scene and get your point across without opening your mouth. You're a master. Kawawa Kadichi plays South African astronaut, Herbert Copley, who goes through training with Liu and has a running gag of Pei Qiang not understanding him. Another character (either his name is Chief Wang or I have 2 characters mixed up) was great. The scenes between the Chief and Liu were touching. Wu Jing as Liu Pei Qiang and Andy Lau as Tu Heng Yu were good. Nothing really stellar to write about except for Yu's creep factor. He was a creepy grieving scientist on the verge of maybe becoming the quintessential mad scientist.

The music partly made the music. It set the tone and provided suspense in scenes that wouldn't have had any otherwise. Re-watch is low, but I can see myself re-watching scenes.

Over all, it's entertaining... enough. It's not a movie that I would tell people they had to see even if they saw the first one. If I heard someone saying they were going to watch the WE series, I'd advise them to watch chronologically and watch 2 before 1, especially since 2 is more story driven while 1 is almost non-stop action.

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