Review of The Great Wall (2016) by Patrick L — 03 May 2017

"It's soulless international filmmaking at it's most desperate and President Trump won't learn anything about building walls from this Asian enterprise".

Movie Review: The Great Wall.

Date Viewed: February 18 2017.

Directed By Zhang Yimou (Raise the Red Lantern, The Story of Qiu Ju, Shanghai Triad, Hero, Not One Less, House of Flying Daggers, The Flowers of War and Curse of the Golden Flower).

Screenplay By Carlo Bernard, Doug Miro and Tony Gilroy, Story By Max Brooks, Edward Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz.

Starring: Matt Damon, Pedro Pascal, Jing Tian, Willem Dafoe, Andy Lau, Zhang Hanyu, Eddie Peng, Lu Han, Lin Gengxin, Chen Xuedong, Huang Xuan, Wang Junkai and Ryan Zheng.

Nutty is the perfect word to describe this movie. "The Great Wall" is soulless international filmmaking at it's most desperate and President Trump won't learn anything about building walls from this Asian enterprise. It's nothing more than a mish-mush of stuff, lots of colors, acrobatics, cheese-whiz CGI effects and green, alien-like monsters. Budgeted at $150 million, "The Great Wall" is the most expensive movie ever made in China and I can see where all the money went.

Sporting an Irish-like accent, Matt Damon sleepwalks his way into the role of William, a mighty warrior from the fantasy-inspired realm of 10th or 11th Century China. William and his partner, Tovar (Pedro Pascal) were part of a mercenary group that was on the run from bandits and they got attacked by an unknown monster that left only the two of them alive. William and Tovar manage to slash off the monster's hand and they continue on their journey until they stumble upon an army of Chinese soldiers and the Great Wall of China.

William and Tovar are taken prisoner by the Nameless Order which is a secretive military unit that was commissioned by the Imperial Court and their duty is to protect the Great Wall from any intrusion. When the Chinese troops get shocked by the sight of the monster's hand William and Tovar picked up, it can only mean one thing. Those green, alien-like monsters I've mentioned earlier rise up every 60 years and those wave of monsters start their advance and attack the Great Wall. Those monsters are named the Tao Tei and they have a queen who's very smart and very strategic.

When William and Tovar help out the Chinese with their defenses, the monsters retreat and they receive praise from Commanders Shao (Zhang Hanyu) and Lin Mae (Jing Tian). Suddenly, loads of subplots develop including a possible romance (I knew it!) between William and Commander Lin Mae, a possible alliance with traitors Tovar and another European, Ballard (Willem Dafoe) and how magnetism can effectively distract the monsters and make them more vulnerable for fierce attacks.

Much of the movie seems devoted into the Great Wall and the epic battle sequences between the Chinese and those green, alien-like creatures. "The Great Wall" may have a lot of monsters, CGI and explosions but it is short on wonder and imagination. Playing action heroes seems to be Matt Damon's forte now but his European accent is not convincing and his performance is pretty stiff. On the other hand, Jing Tian does hold a formidable screen presence despite her being a dose of eye-candy for the Asian market. In fact, this whole movie does feel like a big-budget ploy for the Chinese market. I know that China is now the biggest market for American movies but did the filmmakers have to make "The Great Wall" so dumb and cynical on every front? "The Great Wall" marks the English-language movie debut from acclaimed Chinese filmmaker Zhang Yimou who helmed great movies in the past such as "Raise the Red Lantern", "Not One Less" and "Shanghai Triad" and sweeping martial-arts epics like "Hero" and "House of Flying Daggers".

Yimou has crafted a brainless movie that holds the right ingredients I'm sure 12-year-old boys would dig up, a hot butt-kicking female protagonist/love interest, it has a big, A-list movie star (Matt Damon), huge scaly, green monsters, roaring action and explosions. What's surprising about "The Great Wall" is that was written by an array of talented people, Max Brooks, the man who authored "World War Z", Tony Gilroy who wrote four of the "Bourne" movies, Edward Zwick who directed "Glory", "Blood Diamond" and "The Last Samurai", Doug Miro (The Sorcerer's Apprentice, The Great Raid and Prince of Persia) and Marshall Herskovitz (Love & Other Drugs and Jack Reacher: Never Go Back) who's Zwick's co-producing partner.

"The Great Wall" maybe a mish-mush of special effects, colors and beautiful Chinese culture but there isn't much of a story here. It's a really dumb and nutty movie but at least "The Great Wall" would serve as perfect late-night fodder for Damon's long-time frenemy Jimmy Kimmel.