THE GREAT WALL REVIEW

The Great Wall was released over a month ago and agreed, this is a very late review but in my defense it didn’t hit the cinemas over here as have some of this year’s early releases, so expect a dearth of reviews or late ones if I plan on revisiting them, but I just felt I needed to talk about this movie after recently seeing it, I almost feel obliged to, so if you haven’t seen it or just want to know what I think about the movie, then please indulge my blabber, I’ll make it short (fingers crossed).

WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS!
The Great Wall had some mild marketing ahead of its February release date, and for good reason, this was never going to be a box office hit or a contender for any movie awards, that was obvious from the trailers. The Great Wall didn’t take itself seriously and the minute you realized that, you’d be better off. It was just some (very colorful) Chinese cinematic fun. I mean if you actually feel disappointed after seeing it you should slap yourself, for going to see a movie about the Great Wall of China being built to keep out fictional green monsters…..please slap yourself.

I only have two complaints about this movie, 1. What the fuck is Jason Bourne doing in Imperial China? And 2.How the fuck was this never an Anime? I think it woulda kicked ass if it was, I mean only a cartoon could be so colourful and get away with it.

The Great Wall boasts of acting talent (that is way too good for the material) in Matt Damon (William), Pedro Pascal (Tovar) and Willem Dafoe (Ballard) and a host of Asian actors. It starts in some expected fashion, you know…a little adrenaline bump; Matt Damon’s character (William) and his rag tag band of mercenaries being chased across the desert by what would seem as desert bandits, William and his posse execute a cliché movie manoevure to escape the thieves and then proceed to camp in the mountains for the night, where it is revealed that the reason why they have traveled halfway across the world is to find Black Powder, a weapon of destruction they hope to return to Europe with, so they can retire in riches - a dwindling hope only dwindled further by his party’s pruning numbers and further more when ‘something’ attacks the last two remaining members of the group, William and Tovar defeat the beast and continue to ride to their sought destination until they are once again chased by the bandits they thought they had lost, they decide to make a final stand in the mountains until they are fortunately met by The Great wall and meet The Nameless Order; The defenders of the Wall and the most colourful army you have ever seen, I mean it’s the fucking rainbow army! So least to say they become captives of this army sworn to protect the wall from an unknown but imminent danger but luckily we don’t have to wait too long to find out what that is, you literally find out in like 5 minutes.

Go Go Mighty Morphing Nameless Order!

So, as you might have seen in the trailers the antagonists in this movie are a horde of monsters and their personification of greed and gluttony as a green eyed monster is quite literal, they’re green, they are monsters, they eat anything, and oh yes, they’ve got green eyes. The Tao Tei as we come to know them are apparently not just a fiction of the Director’s or scriptwriters’ imagination, Nooo! They are much bigger than that, they are actually (and I had to research this) something out of Chinese mythology; the ‘taotie’ is one of the four evil creatures of the world. Cool uh? One used to depict (you know already) greed and gluttony.

But this is not a lecture on Chinese mythology, it’s a review, so let’s get back to it shall we? Apparently these Tao Tei are from outer space, yes you heard me, space monsters, and they appear in China after a green meteorite (No not Kryptonite) crashes, with these creatures as willing passengers? An event that happened ages before the movie. The Tao Tei have a cyclical existence, ravaging the lands for food to feed their Queen (Yes they have a Queen) so she can reproduce (like crazy!), they are only held back from real nourishment by The Great Wall which they are yet to breach and with every failed siege, they lick their wounds, eat their dead and try again in the next 60 years, The Great Wall is the only thing between the rest of the world and the Tao Tei, if they ever get past it, and spread to other parts of China it would be to an apocalyptic scale.

The movie seems to shoehorn morals and ideals into its script to less impressive results, and as Willem Dafoe’s Ballard finds out, its main message is a simple one and one we tell every fat kid who doesn’t know when to stop stuffing his face, that greed (or gluttony) is bad, and it might kill ya, literally. William also struggles to choose a side and who he is; a mercenary who only fights for money or a man who can fight for a selfless or greater cause or maybe it was all a ruse to get into the sexy Commander Lin’s (Jing Tian) pants (which he will not! Sorry had to ruin that for you but it won’t happen, not at all). I also think it is worthwhile to mention how the other Corps commanders are highly underused; limited to nothing more than cameo shots, a shame considering there was some potential for better story telling there, eventually there’s really no point having them in this movie as they were just as insignificant as the digitally created army extras.

The Great Wall had some great visual moments

Despite its obviously lazy plot, The Great Wall boasts of some fantastic visuals, quite commendable even, however the CGI was tacky at times with the Tao Tei, noticeably more, when Damon and Pascal fight off the Tao Tei during the first siege shortly after their capture by the ‘Nameless Order’ (I just love how Chinese things have the coolest names e.g. The Forbidden City, The Sword of Destiny, The Dragon King lol) but it gets better. The fight scenes are quite entertaining and the first siege on the wall was immense, I personally liked the Blue Rangers, the all blue-female crane corps who bungee-somersault down the wall to stab the fiends (although I wondered how risky and effective this was), so if action is your thing you might find some respite here.

The Great Wall could be some watchable fun, largely depending on why you’re seeing it, An anti-hero story infused with some morals, greed is bad, do the right thing etc. the kind of movie you watch when you have little to do and happen to come across it. I wouldn’t recommend seeing this at the movies or even buying, just wait till it gets on cable or something and watch it if/when you just wanna see something lighthearted and or if you’re into Chinese mythos. It’s a movie way behind the times but if anything, still has more entertainment value than some other releases.

Reject Rating: 4.5/10