The Great Wall (February 2017)

Official Australian release date: 16/2/17. Viewed: 15/2/17.

Director: Yimou Zhang

Actors: Matt Damon, Pedro Pascal, Tian Jing, Andy Lau

Genre: Action / Fantasy

Rating: M

‘The Great Wall’ is certainly not a documentary! Not that anyone would be mistaken after seeing the poster or synopsis. One plot summary had: “a mystery centered around the construction of the Great Wall of China” – wrong! There’s no mystery, and certainly no construction of the Great Wall – it’s already there when William (Damon – I think he’s supposed to have a Scottish accent, but it’s horrible) & Tovar (Pascal, from Narcos & Game of Thrones) stumble upon it. Commander Lin (Jing) spares them, and they’re suddenly under attack.

The film doesn’t waste too much time starting the fight against the Tao Tie – monsters/aliens (not really explained) that look like a cross between Wargs from ‘Lord of the Rings’ and the Hammerhead beasts from ‘Avatar’. They emerge every 60 years (from Russia?) to attack the Chinese (for some reason) – and there’s about 500 million of them, obviously controlled by a queen (end-game established), but they have their own, literal, kryptonite. There’s some decent action scenes and plenty of stunts, but nothing really new.

This is director Zhang’s first Hollywood film and is nowhere near as good as ‘Hero’ or ‘House of Flying Daggers’. The editing is jerky at times and almost every shot of the Great Wall looks like CGI – I truly hope some of it was actually shot on location. The main problem is you don’t care about any of the characters, as there’s no backstories (no time – it’s all over in 95min), with most of the generals conveniently colour-coded. The whole thing really feels like a poor rip-off of ‘Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers’. Lau & Dafoe are wasted and Damon seems to coast through, being an archer/mercenary who suddenly decides to be a hero. I was wondering if the Chinese audience would hate it, but it’s already made $170 million there in two months, so it was in 2016’s top 10! Definitely too earnest, when it could’ve been funnier/more tongue-in-cheek, when at it is so ridiculous at it’s core.

Overall: Might re-watch if it was on TV…

Gav's Rating: 2.5 stars.

Patriots Day (February 2017)

Official Australian release date: 2/2/17. Viewed: 4/2/17.

Director: Peter Berg

Actors: Mark Wahlberg, Kevin Bacon, John Goodman, Alex Wolff

Genre: Drama / Action

Rating: M

‘Patriots Day’ is another “based-on-real-events” film by Berg, after ‘Lone Survivor’ and ‘Deepwater Horizon’ – and this is just as good. I think once he got ‘Battleship’ out of his system, he’s only got good directing left! He takes his time introducing a set of ~10 characters in the first 20min (no titles), in the lead up to and the start of the 2013 Boston Marathon. Tommy (Wahlberg) is the everyman cop, Carol (Monaghan) is his wife, Ed (Goodman) is the police commissioner, DesLauriers (Bacon) is the FBI agent, Tamerlan (Melikidze) and Dzhokhar (Wolff) are the bombers, and there’s a few other ‘regular’ couples introduced, so we get coverage of the incident from various angles.

Once the bombs go off, it’s utter chaos and is shown very realistically – heart-wrenchingly so – with plenty of smoke, blood, sirens and people screaming everywhere. Tommy does the best he can, but it’s good to see him exhausted and overwhelmed once he’s back home with Carol. We see firsthand some of the victims in hospital – plenty of amputations. Then, it turns to police/FBI efficiency, with a “hours since bombing” graphic letting us know the timeline, as they try to catch the suspects. This man-hunt aspect of the film keeps the momentum up.

Some of the characters we’ve been following that seem to have no role are suddenly involved (i.e. Sergeant Pugliese [Simmons] and Meng [Yang]) as the man-hunt escalates into a shootout. I’m not entirely sure of the actual events that happened after the marathon bombing, so I’m not sure how much creative license was taken by Berg, but there’s a satisfactory conclusion. The film wraps up with the real-life people of the characters we’ve been watching speaking on the impact it’s had on their lives. There’s some truly emotional and touching moments throughout the film, and while it’s sometimes too overtly patriotic, it shows the impact on real people and their resilience.

Overall: Well-made and touching true story.

Gav's Rating: 4 stars.

Manchester By The Sea (February 2017)

Official Australian release date: 2/2/17. Viewed: 3/2/17.

Director: Kenneth Lonergan

Actors: Casey Affleck, Lucas Hedges, Kyle Chandler, Michelle Williams

Genre: Drama

Rating: M

‘Manchester by the Sea’ (a town one hour north-east of Boston) is the setting and title for this film that’s nominated for multiple Oscars, based around a man dealing with grief. Lee (Affleck) is a guy just trying to get by, working as a janitor, when he finds out his brother, Joe (Chandler) has died of a heart attack. He has to drive up to Manchester and try to figure out what to do with his 16-year-old nephew, Patrick (Hedges).

There’s not much backstory as to why Lee is separated from his ex-wife, Randi (Williams), but this, as well as some history of Lee and Joe together, is sporadically filled in throughout the film. The big reveal explains why people look at/whisper about Lee and the very heavy burden he’s carrying. Affleck is great, softly-spoken, but with so much hurt in his eyes – it’s easy to see why he’s nominated for Best Actor. Hedges is as good as the teenaged son, grieving for his dad, but continuing on with life as best he can, including playing ice hockey, band practice and trying to date two girls, while trying to understand and help his uncle.

There’s a decent support cast – Joe’s friend George (Wilson), the coach (Donovan), Patrick’s girlfriend Sandy (Baryshnikov) & her mum Jill (Burns) – but it’s really up to Affleck, Hedges and Williams to do all the heavy lifting. It’s certainly not a fun or exciting film, but it is engrossing, as you learn more about the characters and some of the heartbreak they’ve all endured. It’s a little long, with lots of slow and quiet parts, “endure” is an apt description for what the characters have to do.

Overall: Well-made character-driven drama.

Gav's Rating: 3.5 stars.