The Wandering Earth 2 Blu-ray Review: Earth Angel

The Wandering Earth was China’s big disaster movie and it held up against its American counterparts, superior in fact to lots of Roland Emmerich and Michael Bay output. The sequel goes the RRR route at nearly three hours.

The Wandering Earth II is actually a prequel about the Moving Mountain project. In the first film, the engines built into the earth to launch the planet out of orbit sent us on a collision course with Jupiter. Now we’ll have to wait for Wandering Earth 3 to find out where Earth goes after Jupiter.

The story of the building of the engines is a bit more complicated than just a planetary disaster. There are zealots for transferring society to digital sabotaging the plans. There are elaborate fights in elaborate settings and states of weightlessness. There are masses of drones vs. piloted planes. Underwater sequences are better than those in The Meg 2.

Space scenes hold up with Gravity, although these are obviously more sci-fi than the realistic depiction of NASA. Robots on Earth and natural disasters have solid visual effects too. But there are sets too.

The black bars are thicker so this is even wider than American blockbusters. It also settles into drama about the scientists’ families for the middle section.

Surround sound is intense too. Drones whir behind you and tidal waves splash in each speaker.

So, if you’re tired of the Hollywood blockbusters, the Wandering Earth franchise has comparable effects but a different take on planetary disaster and space missions. The Wandering Earth II is now on Blu-ray.