Review of The Great Wall (2016) by Bikerjames — 01 Apr 2019

Here's the thing with The Great Wall. Is it so bad that it's good? For me, yes. First of all, I saw this on my 4K TV, and it's one of the greatest looking films I've seen so far in that format. Gorgeous cinematography all the way around.

The sound is equally superb, and when the soldiers are pounding the big bass drums it will put your subwoofer to the test and get your blood pumping. Many of the scenes obviously had 3D in mind while filming, and I'm sure the film looks great in that format as well, although I didn't see it in 3D.

Some of the scenes are laughably ridiculous, such as the bungee jumpers that try to kill the beasts one at a time. It's very easy for the monsters to pick them off. Some of the acting is a little wooden, although the bad dialogue is to blame more than the actors.

The obvious question while watching the movie is why don't the monsters simply climb up the wall where there are no soldiers and weapons to confront?. But then there would be no movie as the soldiers would get killed.

This could have been a classic movie if more time was spent on character development, but it looks like they decided on concentrating on the visual and aural senses, and they certainly succeeded on that.

I was never bored watching the film. Another movie made in the same vain was "Mad Max Fury Road", but Mad Max was a much better film because they did concentrate on the characters and didn't make it only a visual and aural movie.

Still, if you want to show off your whole system this is a great choice.