Released last year in cinemas under the title Cloudy Mountain, you can now watch Jun Li's film at home, however it's now going by the title Shattered Earth.
Whether it's going by Cloudy Mountain or Shattered Earth it's a fairly run of the mill, generic, cheesy disaster movie offering very little in the way of excitement so I wouldn't spend too long worrying about the names and what you should call it.
A new tunnel that's been 10 years in the making finally opens and coincides with a devastating earthquake causing buildings to tumble and sinkholes to open. All of a sudden, the lives of 160,000 people to depend on one retired railway soldier and his son who's an explosives engineer. The two travel deep inside the cave to try and rescue the trapped survivors. They have to lead the survivors to safety before the second earthquake hits burying the whole town and everyone in it.
Everything about Shattered Earth is instantly forgettable to the point that by the end of the film you probably can't even remember how it started or what any of the characters are called. It moves along at explosive pace however there's little else explosive about Shattered Earth.
There are just too many natural disasters occurring in such a short amount of time. Yes, that's how disaster movies generally work but the likelihood that not a single scientist saw a single one of these events coming is preposterous. The word ‘preposterous' goes with disaster movies far more than ‘believable' does but nonetheless, there's just no enjoyment to be had with a film like Shattered Earth when it's all so ridiculous.
The copious amounts of horrible looking CGI plastered across the entire thing only help make it even more bland and forgettable. It's a poorly written disaster movie so of course you have ham-fisted, clunky ways to try and make you care about the characters and a large number of action scenes but nothing here is really of any interest whatsoever.
Of course, it's not claiming to be Citizen Kane or anything high quality but with films like this you expect to have fun and enjoy yourself as the world falls to pieces. And unfortunately, Shattered Earth isn't an especially fun watch. There's the odd moment of excitement here and there and a good death scene of two but beyond that, there's very little to keep your attention until the end.
Shattered Earth is available on DVD September 5th and Digital September 12th