Review of The Great Wall (2016) by Orlando O — 18 Feb 2017

The Great Wall a fantasy film that depicts China giant historical wall with a creative legend of it being used to keep the monsters out. I am not faulting the film or Hollywood for "whitewashing" like having Matt Damon star as a main character in a chinese big budget film. Sure, there are others like Willem Dafoe in it. At least, they had a story involving a group of mercenaries led by William (Matt Damon) on a search for black powder. Roaming across the north of the Great Wall. William and his group are chased by bandits, taking refuge in a camp. Only to get attacked by a monster, only leaving William and Tovar (Pedro Pascal). They get picked up by a chinese military led by Commander Lin (Jing Tian). Where they are stationed on the Great Wall, trying to defend it and preventing a wave of monsters from crossing to the capital.

The pros about the film, I sure do love a film that is non-stop action, which The Great Wall does so well. It has plenty of action and battles throughout. Even in the beginning of the film, the chinese army has their "flying angels" that are tied to retractable ropes as they leap off the wall to attack from above and to incline back on top. Which can be pretty cool and neat. For director Zhang Yimou, the action and battle sequences can be a bit repetitive after the first attack. There is nothing new added to the table that made the battle exciting. It was well paced, but it cannot go for so long until you really do not care about what will happen next.

The visual effects were decent, the set design and costume design were okay. Visual effects on the explosions were noticeable that it was cgi than practical. The creature design was neat. And the effects with creating a mass array of an army as they charged towards the wall and were climbing on top of each other to get on top. Kind of reminded me from that one scene from World War Z film. During the climax of the film that is set at the Captial, it was endless action, I thought some of the fights were cheesy as Lin and her people were on hot balloon crafts fighting from above, and over the villages. The film is all about trying to be entertaining at least.

The script does leave out character development, which does not give enough time to engage in these characters besides knowing the two main leads are on search for black powder. And they are stuck in the middle of this battle. By the time it ends, you still would not even know these characters names.

Overall, The Great Wall is a fair fantasy film. Not really focused on a developing story or characters. But does throw some neat concepts and entertaining battle sequences that would be worth checking out.