I tried watching the Chinese science fiction blockbuster (at least in China) The Wandering Earth last night.
It's spectacularly bad - like the worst Michael Bay (or Roland Emmerich) movie times 10, with even less character development, terrible opaque-to-understanding action editing, very 2001 derivative in one plot element, underwhelming special effects, and an awful, clunky script. About the only slightly interesting thing was that there was a light relief character (who didn't have much to do, actually) who was meant to have one parent from China, and one from Melbourne. I think there was sort of a suggestion that his Australian genes had dumbed him down, but I could be wrong.
Anyway, I put up with its awfulness for about half the way, before speeding up to the end to see what happened. Yeah, heroic male sacrifice featured, as might be expected. Chinese audiences must be absolutely desperate for special effects heavy science fiction movies to have seen this one in large numbers, is all I can say.
I see that on Rottentomatoes that there are OK reviews from some American critics in the "just a bit of escapist, science fiction disaster movie fun " variety. They are wrong.
I haven't seen the movie but it is based on a book by Liu Cixin. His novels tend to be very good.
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