We are, I think, used to entertainment as Spectacle. With spectacle, the focus is on the screen itself: the explosions, the camera shots, the actors' craft. As a spectacle, The Wandering Earth falls short. The scenes are rushed, the environment is drab and the actors are not Daniel Day-Lewis and Meryl Streep. It is as a form of moral exhortation, a celebration of human genius and a reminder of how much we still have left to (and must) achieve that the film shines.

The film is set during a moment in a vast project to guarantee the continuation of human civilisation outside our solar system. The technology and level of organisation deployed, without explanation, at the start of the film are advanced enough to be indistinguishable from magic. But really, stranger, with whom I am communicating across oceans 'telepathically', why would that need explaining, hmm? The point is less the plausibility of the tech than the (human) genius behind it. It is less our technology than our social milieu and the bonds of fellowship shared with family, friends and humanity that pushes us and grants us our ability. Plus Ultra! As Charles V would say.

The underlying philosophy is certainly 'collectivist' (Classical Athenian, if you prefer). Individuals are (deliberately?) forgettable, but their actions are what matters and what will live on. Consider the fact that we have no idea who invented the 'earth engines' that, literally, drive the plot. The point that individual selfishness can threaten civilisation is made both over the course of the movie as the protagonist (on earth) experiences his bildungsroman and when it seems that all hope for humanity is lost. Archibald MacLeish wrote that 'to see the earth as it truly is, small and blue and beautiful in that eternal silence where it floats, is to see ourselves as riders on the earth together, brothers on that bright loveliness in the eternal cold.' And in the film's climactic moment, it is 'together' that salvation happens. Even if during the course of acting 'together', many individual sacrifices occur. It is sad but worthy.

I suppose this is a film that would appeal more to the sort who joke about being too early to explore the seas and too late to explore the stars. They might feel, as Cecil Rhodes did on his deathbed, that there is 'So little done. So much to do.' But such is life, we stand on the shoulders of giants and it is we who will decide if those who follow us stand on the shoulders of midgets. I am proud to say that from the hour-mark, I was pretty much in tears. From across the screen, you can feel Mr Liu Cixin's pen asking: Are you worthy; Will you be?

It goes without saying that I will be pushing everybody I know to watch this.