imagine for a moment: You’re Roland Emmerich, and you’ve just wrapped production on 2012. But it’s not enough. It’s never enough. You toss and turn all night. More. You wake up far too early, stumble into the washroom, slam on the light switch, collapse over the sink, and stare long and deep into your own reflection. More. An utterance issue forth from the darkest recess of your soul, the vocalization of a primal, creative urge, a voice that is always punishing, never satiated: “More,” you mutter under your breath.
You’re Roland Emmerich, and the world is not enough.
That’s the restless, wayward energy Frant Gwo brings to The Wandering Earth, billed as China’s first sci-fi blockbuster. The film plays like the sequel to 2012 that nobody asked for but a lot of people (including yours truly) maybe secretly (perversely?) hoped to see. China has been chasing Hollywood standards and success for quite some time now (while Hollywood, incidentally, has been chasing China’s rapidly growing and movie-hungry middle class). Released alongside a large slate of Chinese productions vying for box office dollars during the busy Chinese New Year season, The Wandering Earth is the best movie Roland Emmerich never made. Director Frant Gwo doesn’t so much channel Emmerich as he does reverse-engineer the doomsday maestro’s entire career, dunking on his filmography and rendering him obsolete.
Submitted February 20, 2019 at 08:18AM by Iceman2913 https://ift.tt/2SLkTmO