This film, with its reliance on visual spectacle, inadvertently highlights the strengths of movies that actually emphasize coherent narratives, such as The Wandering Earth. Here, you can largely switch your brain off and simply enjoy the ride. However, digging a little deeper reveals a series of rather glaring logical inconsistencies.
Plot Holes Abound (Slight Spoilers Ahead)
Considering the year is supposedly 2023, it strains credulity that a massive swarm of meteoroids trailing a comet could somehow escape the notice of ground-based observatories, amateur astronomers, and even the crew of the International Space Station. It’s hard to believe that the space station could not observe something like that which makes it feel like we have been transported to a time period from over a century ago rather than the setting of the film.
Furthermore, the speed with which the ravaged city recovers its cellular service and electricity is completely unrealistic. After suffering such widespread devastation the infrastructure should have completely been impacted, but the film suggest that society was able to restore services in record time.
One of the most absurd moments involves the dilapidated space station seemingly “hacking” into the terrestrial internet (which is also assumed to still be functioning), and using this improbable access to pinpoint the heroine’s cellphone. It gets worse as the station then redirects rescue efforts to locate its commander’s daughter.
The survival of the main character in the face of overwhelming odds borders on the comical. The boyfriend being pummeled by high-altitude debris, but inexplicably resurrected, demands an exceptional degree of suspension of disbelief.
Ultimately, it benefits the experience to approach this as a pure, effects-driven spectacle, and not as a work of genuine science fiction. In this context, the flawed storyline becomes somewhat easier to accept.
Finally, it is hard not to notice a clear tendency toward extensive use of slow-motion, particularly in the depiction of key dramatic moments, echoing the aesthetic inclinations within Russian cinema.
