There are conspicuous echoes of movies as varied as Lord of the Rings, Starship Troopers, How to Train Your Dragon, and Mulan.Īlas, Zhang’s moments of visual splendor-a battalion of hot-air balloonists, the queen-monster and her royal guard of fan-frilled monstrosities-are weighed down by a script and performances almost dutiful in their dullness. The defensive forces are resplendent in brightly laminated armor that would not be out of place in Marvel’s Asgard: black for foot-soldiers red for archers and, best of all, an all-female cadre of “crane warriors” led by Lin Mae (Jing), who take lances in hand and hurl themselves down from the high parapets like bungee-jumping amazons. Giger, and you won’t be far off.) These toothy creatures hurl themselves at the wall by the thousands every 60 years, like really, really ornery cicadas.Īs in the past-even in his second-tier films such as Curse of the Golden Flower-Zhang’s palette is a chromatic marvel.
(Envision a pitbull as reimagined by H.R. (For one thing it’s too short to be, clocking in at a merciful 104 minutes in an era when CGI epics frequently approach twice that.) But it’s certainly not a good one.ĭamon plays William, a rogue who makes the perilous journey to China in search of “black powder,” a fabled substance that can “turn air into fire.” The others in his mercenary band are all killed en route, save for Tovar (Pascal), who with William discovers an unimaginably vast wall garrisoned by selfless warriors called the “Nameless Order.” Their mission, he learns, is to protect China against the Tao Tei, hideous quadrupeds with eyeballs in their shoulder blades. The Movie That Understands the Secret Shame of Motherhood Shirley LiĪlas, rather than multiply these talents productively, The Great Wall reduces them to their lowest common denominator. And as a general rule, Damon is as reliably excellent a lead actor as you’ll find anywhere in Hollywood. The cast includes talented American actors in Willem Dafoe and Pedro Pascal (who was magnificent as Oberyn Martell on Game of Thrones) and Chinese stars both relatively new (Jing Tian) and firmly established (the great Andy Lau). Zhang has directed sophisticated dramas ( Ju Dou, Raise High the Red Lantern) and thrilling action pictures ( Hero, House of Flying Daggers). The Great Wall, a Chinese-American co-production starring Matt Damon as a European mercenary fighting (literal) monsters during the Song dynasty, could have been a marvel. But, to paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld, you go to the cineplex with the army you have. As touched upon, all three of these characters could have contained more of a backstory, but sadly with such a short runtime, it seemed like this wasn’t the filmmaker’s goal.It’s probably safe to presume that, had he known the political climate into which he would be dropping his debut English-language film, the legendary Chinese director Zhang Yimou would have chosen a subject other than the heroism of warriors defending an immense national wall against an invasion of horrifying aliens. Matt Damon featured heavily as William, the mercenary warrior that became imprisoned within The Great Wall, while Pedro Pascal and William Dafoe starred as Tovar and Ballard, two other outsiders imprisoned also. The Great Wall contained ones that were explosive and over-the-top from the very first minute, all the way until the last, along with some really effective and easy on the eye CGI being used – especially when it came to the Tao Tei. With that being said, it’s easy to understand that in films of this nature, the thoroughness of certain personalities often takes a backseat to the frequent combat sequences on display. Fantasy adventure films with incredibly large budgets, aren’t exactly my forte, nor are they my preference, but all in all, this seemed like a good escape from reality for the entire one-hundred and three-minute runtime it held.įilled with action and some unique battle scenes throughout, it turned out to be more than watchable on the whole, but one thing that did strike me, was the fact that there didn’t seem to be much of a backstory or general substance behind the majority of the main characters. It’s fair to say that I applied this logic when sitting down to finally watch The Great Wall. Starring: Matt Damon, Pedro Pascal, William Dafoe, Tian JingĪt times, approaching a movie with zero expectations can be the best route to take and may deliver some surprises in the process. Writers: Carlo Bernard, Doug Miro, Tony Gilroy,