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.