From there, “The Great Wall” does not have much of a plot, with most of the story revolving around the Europeans attempting to escape while massive battles against invading hordes of green dragon-monsters rage around them.
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Looking at the film through a Hollywood lens, dismissing The Great Wall because it stars Damon as a savior of China is not entirely beneficial, nor is it fair.
Nobody ever said being a trailblazer was glorious, or pretty – but at least The Great Wall gets the latter right.
Damon’s William is but a tired mercenary looking for some magical weapon known as “black powder”. Tovar is from Spain.
Performances: Wearing a man-bun and affecting a unusual accent that he eventually abandons, Matt Damon is a disappointment as William. Then, somewhere toward the end, it starts to poke fun at itself.
What you need to know is the monsters attack, while the soldiers of the Nameless Order dispatch them in stunningly artistic fashion.
William manages to chop off the thing’s hand before it falls over a cliff.
If The Great Wall is pandering to anyone, it’s to audiences in China, and they rolled their eyes – after a big million opening weekend there in December, interest in the film cooled quickly. Instead, the pair are told that they are needed for the fight.
There’s no time for romance, though, because humanity is under siege by the Tao Tei, a dinosaurish species of monster. Seriously, that is the backstory. The lessons transform him, but prove less persuasive to Tovar and another English-speaking rogue who arrived earlier (Willem Dafoe).
“The Great Wall” is in theatres in the UK, US and Australia now.
The psychological horror thriller, “A Cure for Wellness”, is a freakish and outright disturbing film that may be a hard sell for even the most extreme scary movie enthusiasts. Well, not quite. While air travel hadn’t yet been mastered, unmanned hot air balloons were often sent over the battlefield to distract the enemy. It’s a very striking visual. At one point, long slits in the wall uncover giant blades that slash through any man or beast who tries to scale the wall, and we first meet Commander Lin as she leads a team of spear-throwing daredevils called the Crane Corps who bungee jump off complex platforms on the wall. His cohorts all try to steal from their Chinese hosts and run away. It was the Great Wall, as if designed by Leonardo Da Vinci, and the Wall came alive. Fortunately, Good Will Hunting shows up to teach them that not all white people are bad. It’s a pictorial success, capably lit and shot in focus, but missing the gripping characters and exciting action sequences expected from movies about men (and women) fighting off monster attacks. It was just referenced enough to make me think “I get it!”
Maybe this’ll teach us not to judge a movie by its marketing campaign.
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Considering the scope of a movie like this, with expansive sets and special effects, plenty of fight scenes and Matt Damon, it’s a wonder how “The Great Wall” turns out so incredibly boring. But look, Suicide Squad made a bunch of money and that was garbage. In what plays like a spoof of Joe Clark (the real-life, baseball-bat wielding teacher played by Morgan Freeman in Lean on Me), Ron grabs an ax and makes firewood of some desks, smashing the TV for good measure. “The Great Wall is slightly better than Suicide Squad!”
