05-10-2019, 09:49 AM
I watched this last night. LCF chose to pass.
I accepted all the high-powered rockets blasting Earth outward through the solar system and was ready to suspend disbelief for anything after that. And yet time and again the movie upped the ante on its idiocy. This is based on a story by Liu Cixin? Of The Three Body Problem? I'd be interested to know what he thinks of the script -- though he might not be open about it. I'll dig a little deeper after this post into what the original story was. Cixin can get pretty far out there, but still, I thought his speculations were a little more science-founded.
The movie is ... strident. There are so many ticking clocks one after another, to the point that it was exhausting. At one point I paused the film for a bathroom break expecting it to show only a few minutes left, only to see there was still another hour. This is the mother of all ticking clock movies. And the clocks were so absurd. Needing to do preposterous things on a preposterous timescale...
I didn't get a good feel for how it treated foreigners. Certainly the Chinese were the saviors of humanity. I was kept so busy trying to read subtitles and follow the action.
Wu Jing is good. The special effects are ... good enough for Netflix, as DM said. Clearly a whole lot of work went into this. But I'm thinking it may not ignite on Netflix. Too China-centric, patriotic, with sloppy sentimentals (all of which DM pointed out). And I'm going to say it. Too dumb even for Americans.
But I could be wrong. There's lots of action eye candy here, with SF space-scapes. And as Confucius once said, "Nothing is ever too dumb for Americans." So, it'll be interesting to see how it does.
I accepted all the high-powered rockets blasting Earth outward through the solar system and was ready to suspend disbelief for anything after that. And yet time and again the movie upped the ante on its idiocy. This is based on a story by Liu Cixin? Of The Three Body Problem? I'd be interested to know what he thinks of the script -- though he might not be open about it. I'll dig a little deeper after this post into what the original story was. Cixin can get pretty far out there, but still, I thought his speculations were a little more science-founded.
The movie is ... strident. There are so many ticking clocks one after another, to the point that it was exhausting. At one point I paused the film for a bathroom break expecting it to show only a few minutes left, only to see there was still another hour. This is the mother of all ticking clock movies. And the clocks were so absurd. Needing to do preposterous things on a preposterous timescale...
I didn't get a good feel for how it treated foreigners. Certainly the Chinese were the saviors of humanity. I was kept so busy trying to read subtitles and follow the action.
Wu Jing is good. The special effects are ... good enough for Netflix, as DM said. Clearly a whole lot of work went into this. But I'm thinking it may not ignite on Netflix. Too China-centric, patriotic, with sloppy sentimentals (all of which DM pointed out). And I'm going to say it. Too dumb even for Americans.
But I could be wrong. There's lots of action eye candy here, with SF space-scapes. And as Confucius once said, "Nothing is ever too dumb for Americans." So, it'll be interesting to see how it does.