The Great Wall - directed by Yimou Zhang
I have lost track of how many times I've seen the trailer for this film.
Admittedly it was a big year last year for me and I saw movies at a rate of more than one every two days on average including more sessions of "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story" than I am going to admit to but nonetheless - it seemed that every single movie that I saw from around November 2016 onwards had the trailer for "The Great Wall" attached to it.
The trailer screamed "From Visionary Director Yimou Zhang" and seemed at pains to make the film look like "The Return of the King" meets "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon".
Well it isn't.... it is more like a Paul W S Anderson movies but with better editing.
The trailer does accurately portray one thing and that is the plot.
The Chinese have built wall so tall and so long that they may as well have called it Trump's Wet Dream rather than the Great Wall of China.
The titles over the opening of the film tell is that it was built to keep out many things including some that have remained a secret but that will be revealed by this story.
So we have two Western soldiers entering the realm of the wall because they seek gunpowder only to become embroiled in a battle to defend the Chinese capital from hordes of Warg-like creatures called the Tao Tei.
The wall and a highly trained, extremely committed army of Chinese warriors are all that stand between the horrible beasties and the city beyond.
Oh, and once they have taken over Bianliang (the capital) it is onwards and upwards towards the rest of the world.
So some pretty high stakes then.
As the Westerners who stumble into the looming war Matt Damon and Pedro Pascal play the sort of duo that we've seen a hundred times before.
Whether it's Han Solo and Chewbacca, Malcolm Reynolds and Jayne or Riggs and Murtaugh this sort of buddy pairing relies on one being the stoic, honourable one and the other being either a bit of a rogue and/or a touch squiffy in the head.
Here of course Damon is William the honourable one although it is alluded two a few times that he might not be exactly squeaky clean.
Pascal- known to most people as Oberyn in "Game of Thrones" and Javier in the excellent "Narcos" is Tovar the rogue- the man who is only interested in his own needs.
Tired tropes like the mismatched buddies destined to do the right thing in the end work if the chemistry is there and the back and forth works.
It kind of doesn't here.
It isn't the fault of Damon or Pascal who are as good as you would expect but rather than flat dialogue that lacks spark and results in exchanges like this one...
Yeah... it is right out of "Plan Nine From Outer Space".
Things don't get any better as the movie progresses but at least they don't get worse.
Other characters suffer but mostly through iffy casting or poor characterisation.
There is the cliched young soldier Peng Yong (Lu Han) who wants to fight but keeps requiring saving.
Add in a grizzled warrior who doubts the ability of these strangers who dare enter his world.
And a smart, battle hardened warrior who doubles as a love interest.
Tian Jing plays this character - Commander Lin Mae.
She is a very pretty actress but I didn't for one second buy her immaculately made up face and slight build as a tough as nails strategist and warrior.
There isn't a lot of chemistry between her and Damon either beyond a few lingering stares across the smokey battlements.
Which brings me to the battle scenes.
Employing Weta Workshop to make armour and weapons was a no-brainer and they do a great job.
But I cannot believe that the visual effects animation was done by Industrial Light & Magic.
The CGI in this film is average at best.
The Tao Tei creatures are decent up close but the scenes of hordes of them flooding up against the wall are unconvincing.
"The Return of the King" is now more than a dozen years old and the visual effects in that make these looks like a student film.
Visually "The Great Wall" looks more like a Resident Evil movie than a major big studio production.
This film cost $150,000,000 to make and that money will get you a Marvel flick or three Deadpools.
Even many shots of the wall itself look unconvincing.
I was never super excited for this film but given the involvement of the director of "House of Flying Daggers" and "Hero" I was expecting some visual polish.
One thing that I was very pleased about was the editing.
"The Great Wall" is well stitched together.
Or at least the scenes in isolation are.
The action scenes are nicely constructed with everything clear and easy to follow.
Paul W S Anderson's utter abortion of a film "Resident Evil: The Final Chapter" could learn a lot from this films editing team
They are responsible for a bunch of Gore Verbinski and JJ Abrams movies between them after all.
I mention that the editing of the scenes is good and I am specific deliberately because the overall pace of the film is off.
There are several scenes in which it cuts abruptly to another scene so jarringly that it gives the sense that bits have been chopped out.
Time and a blu-ray loaded with deleted scenes will tell but whatever the reason - this film doesn't flow very smoothly at all.
There are frequent lapses in logic that are really best just quietly forgotten.
The warriors that plunge bungie cord like into the sea of Tao Tei creatures manage to kill one or at best two per plunge and ultimately serve more as a human reverse bobbing for apples.
I would have thought that the smarter move would have been to stay put at the top of the wall and poke the beasts in the eyes from a safe distance as the scramble slowly up the wall.
(Interesting to note too that one of the credited writers is Tony Gilroy of whom Matt Damon has been none too complimentary in recent years- link )
But....
For all of the criticisms I have levelled at "The Great Wall" - being boring is not one of them.
I was entertained for all of the 103 minutes.
Yeah, I grimaced a couple of times at the dialogue and even rolled my eyes more than once at the cliche riddled characters and gaping plot holes and the less said about some of the visual effects the better but Damon and Pascal's charisma and some nice flourish to the action scenes (of which there are plenty) carries this one over the line.
It is far from great and often struggles to be merely good but when all is said and done this is a movie about thousands of bloodthirsty monsters attacking an army of spear wielding, arrow shooting brightly attired warriors atop a wall loaded with fireball launching catapults.
You have to do way more wrong than "The Great Wall" does to completely screw that up.
It's no "Return of the King" or even "World War Z" but its okay.
Fun even.
RATING: 70 / 100
CONCLUSION: Silly as hell with weak dialogue and visual effects that never rise above average this is nonetheless a decent bit of fluff that for all its faults is never boring
Starring: Matt Damon, Pedro Pascal, Tian Jing, Willem Dafoe, Andy Lau, Hanyu Zhang, Lu Han, Kenny Lin, Eddie Peng, Xuan Huang, Ryan Zheng, Pilou Asbaek, Numan Acar, Johnny Cicco, Karry Wang
Screenplay: Doug Miro, Carlo Bernard & Tony Gilroy
Music Score by: Ramin Djawadi
Cinematography: Stuart Dryburgh
Edited by: Mary Jo Markey & Craig Wood
Running Time: 103 minutes
Language: English & Mandarin
Rated: M - Mild fantasy violence
Running Time: 103 minutes
Language: English & Mandarin
Rated: M - Mild fantasy violence
Admittedly it was a big year last year for me and I saw movies at a rate of more than one every two days on average including more sessions of "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story" than I am going to admit to but nonetheless - it seemed that every single movie that I saw from around November 2016 onwards had the trailer for "The Great Wall" attached to it.
The trailer screamed "From Visionary Director Yimou Zhang" and seemed at pains to make the film look like "The Return of the King" meets "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon".
Well it isn't.... it is more like a Paul W S Anderson movies but with better editing.
The trailer does accurately portray one thing and that is the plot.
The Chinese have built wall so tall and so long that they may as well have called it Trump's Wet Dream rather than the Great Wall of China.
The titles over the opening of the film tell is that it was built to keep out many things including some that have remained a secret but that will be revealed by this story.
So we have two Western soldiers entering the realm of the wall because they seek gunpowder only to become embroiled in a battle to defend the Chinese capital from hordes of Warg-like creatures called the Tao Tei.
The wall and a highly trained, extremely committed army of Chinese warriors are all that stand between the horrible beasties and the city beyond.
Oh, and once they have taken over Bianliang (the capital) it is onwards and upwards towards the rest of the world.
So some pretty high stakes then.
 |
| Pedro Pascal, Matt Damon, Tian Jing and Willem Dafoe |
Whether it's Han Solo and Chewbacca, Malcolm Reynolds and Jayne or Riggs and Murtaugh this sort of buddy pairing relies on one being the stoic, honourable one and the other being either a bit of a rogue and/or a touch squiffy in the head.
Here of course Damon is William the honourable one although it is alluded two a few times that he might not be exactly squeaky clean.
Pascal- known to most people as Oberyn in "Game of Thrones" and Javier in the excellent "Narcos" is Tovar the rogue- the man who is only interested in his own needs.
Tired tropes like the mismatched buddies destined to do the right thing in the end work if the chemistry is there and the back and forth works.
It kind of doesn't here.
It isn't the fault of Damon or Pascal who are as good as you would expect but rather than flat dialogue that lacks spark and results in exchanges like this one...
William
"This Army - have you ever seen anything like it?"
Tovar
"Incredible!"
Yeah... it is right out of "Plan Nine From Outer Space".
Things don't get any better as the movie progresses but at least they don't get worse.
Other characters suffer but mostly through iffy casting or poor characterisation.
There is the cliched young soldier Peng Yong (Lu Han) who wants to fight but keeps requiring saving.
Add in a grizzled warrior who doubts the ability of these strangers who dare enter his world.
And a smart, battle hardened warrior who doubles as a love interest.
Tian Jing plays this character - Commander Lin Mae.
She is a very pretty actress but I didn't for one second buy her immaculately made up face and slight build as a tough as nails strategist and warrior.
There isn't a lot of chemistry between her and Damon either beyond a few lingering stares across the smokey battlements.
Which brings me to the battle scenes.
Employing Weta Workshop to make armour and weapons was a no-brainer and they do a great job.
But I cannot believe that the visual effects animation was done by Industrial Light & Magic.
The CGI in this film is average at best.
The Tao Tei creatures are decent up close but the scenes of hordes of them flooding up against the wall are unconvincing.
"The Return of the King" is now more than a dozen years old and the visual effects in that make these looks like a student film.
Visually "The Great Wall" looks more like a Resident Evil movie than a major big studio production.
This film cost $150,000,000 to make and that money will get you a Marvel flick or three Deadpools.
Even many shots of the wall itself look unconvincing.
I was never super excited for this film but given the involvement of the director of "House of Flying Daggers" and "Hero" I was expecting some visual polish.
 |
| The Visual effects vary from decent to dismal |
"The Great Wall" is well stitched together.
Or at least the scenes in isolation are.
The action scenes are nicely constructed with everything clear and easy to follow.
Paul W S Anderson's utter abortion of a film "Resident Evil: The Final Chapter" could learn a lot from this films editing team
They are responsible for a bunch of Gore Verbinski and JJ Abrams movies between them after all.
I mention that the editing of the scenes is good and I am specific deliberately because the overall pace of the film is off.
There are several scenes in which it cuts abruptly to another scene so jarringly that it gives the sense that bits have been chopped out.
Time and a blu-ray loaded with deleted scenes will tell but whatever the reason - this film doesn't flow very smoothly at all.
There are frequent lapses in logic that are really best just quietly forgotten.
The warriors that plunge bungie cord like into the sea of Tao Tei creatures manage to kill one or at best two per plunge and ultimately serve more as a human reverse bobbing for apples.
I would have thought that the smarter move would have been to stay put at the top of the wall and poke the beasts in the eyes from a safe distance as the scramble slowly up the wall.
(Interesting to note too that one of the credited writers is Tony Gilroy of whom Matt Damon has been none too complimentary in recent years- link )
But....
For all of the criticisms I have levelled at "The Great Wall" - being boring is not one of them.
I was entertained for all of the 103 minutes.
Yeah, I grimaced a couple of times at the dialogue and even rolled my eyes more than once at the cliche riddled characters and gaping plot holes and the less said about some of the visual effects the better but Damon and Pascal's charisma and some nice flourish to the action scenes (of which there are plenty) carries this one over the line.
It is far from great and often struggles to be merely good but when all is said and done this is a movie about thousands of bloodthirsty monsters attacking an army of spear wielding, arrow shooting brightly attired warriors atop a wall loaded with fireball launching catapults.
You have to do way more wrong than "The Great Wall" does to completely screw that up.
It's no "Return of the King" or even "World War Z" but its okay.
Fun even.
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