User Reviews

The famous Great Wall was built to keep out the evil hordes: people with a lot of problems, drug dealers, murderers rapists, and (I assume) some good people. Wait a minute, wrong wall.

Regardless, The Great Wall embraces a new direction currently seen in filmmaking. Many movies, like Transformers 4, have featured Chinese locations prominently with the hope of getting into Chinese theaters. The rules to get into Chinese theaters are long and complex and the rules as to how much money an American studio can make from those theaters is even more complex. So, US-Chinese co- productions like The Great Wall could become the rule rather than the exception.

Consequently, the story behind how a movie like The Great Wall gets produced, is way more interesting than the movie itself. The Great Wall is movie where things happen not out of natural plot development or character motivations, things happen because the script says they happen.

The best example of this lack of plot development is the revelation that the creatures made it to the other side of the wall. How they accomplish this daunting feat is neither explained nor shown to the audience. Suddenly, a guard tells Matt Damon that it's happened and that's that. Perhaps the creatures paid a toll?

Speaking of which, the creatures and main villain of this movie are simply put ugly green poorly rendered computer dogs. Not creepy ugly like the Predator or Alien. Just ugly ugly. Additionally, they express no motivation or intelligence for their machinations beyond the need to get food for their queen. That's the limit of their complexity, this from the main antagonists throughout the movie.

I guess I could go into Willem Dafoe's role in the movie, but then I'd quickly be doing more work on his character than the script did. Further, Matt Damon's character has a friend (played by Pedro Pascal) that travels with him throughout the story whose contribution is nearly non-existent.

In fact, one could streamline this script and tell the same story with just Matt Damon's character and a selection of random guards. One could argue that all the extra story lines and characters are red herrings. However, that would imply that these elements at one time seem important. They never do. The movie is nothing more than generic throwaway monsters versus shallow throwaway heroes.

Sadly enough, some good ideas are here. For instance, to signal how they'll attack the creatures the soldier use drumbeats to unify their action quickly. This is not only a nifty military technique, but, more importantly, provides a good driving bass to the action and, unfortunately, is criminally underused here. The use of color on the Chinese soldiers is frequently beautiful. However, the way they attack the amassing hordes from the wall swiftly ranges from very cool to very stupid.

Presumably, they could create a decent video game from this movie, which brings us full circle to the techniques movie makers embrace to make money.

I watched trailers for this movie and although I didn't expect great art, I did think it could be dumb fun. Well, I was half right.

Zhang Yimou's Hero has the dubious privilege of being the most gorgeous movie with a reprehensible message I've ever watched in theaters ("Hey, if the tyrant prevails at least the war will end and we'll all be cool, amirite? Also, check out this awesome fight scene with a red-and-yellow colour palette!").

Yimou seemed to make an amend of sorts with Curse of the Golden Flower, which was less visually luscious but had the good grace to squint with horror at the brutality of absolute power celebrated by the ending of Hero.

In The Great Wall, a Chinese-American fantasy epic, politics take a backseat (other than a generic "sacrifice for the greater good" theme) and the director goes for pure schlock - call it Yimou's Pacific Rim.

See, what history books fail to mention is how the titular Wall was built to protect ancient China against hordes of green telepathic alien hyenas. That's kind of a grievous omission, history books. Cue a noble order defending the Wall, including strategist Andy Lau and commander Tian Jing, who knows how to rock a tight-fitting armor.

Cue Matt Damon - who can be fine in the right part (The Talented Mr Ripley) but is on auto-pilot here - and Oberyn Martell, unshaven Western mercenaries gaping at the unusual sight before jumping into the fray.

Cue Willem Dafoe as an older prisoner, a role tailor-made for the purpose of delivering exposition... except he doesn't even get to deliver exposition. Oh, there is a subplot about gunpowder, but it doesn't go anywhere and Oberyn Martell could have carried it alone. I guess Willem Dafoe is there to justify why members of the order can speak English fluently in ancient China: Willem Dafoe taught them. I appreciate your sudden concern for realism, movie, but - given the green telepathic alien hyenas - you shouldn't have bothered.

All the outcry for white guy Matt Damon starring in a story about the Great Wall could have been saved for the movie being, you know, not very good. The first act is enjoyable in a mindless kind of way with the spectacle of various units wearing specific hues of brightly colored armors depending on their battle specialization... although the blue ones who bungee jump on monsters really drew the short stick.

Sadly, the movie peters out in a last act which is unintentionally funny ("Oh no, the monsters did pass through the Wall while we weren't watching! All five millions of them!"), obvious and anticlimactic: the Good Guys only need to blow up the Alien Queen, which provides wi-fi connection to the whole horde. Kind of like the last act of Edge of Tomorrow (the worst part of it).

Pity: with the same endearingly ludicrous high-concept premise but stronger characters and a tighter script (and more sense of humour, because you really can't play this stuff with a straight face), The Great Wall could have become something of a cult classic.

(Also, this is a cheap shot... but the movie poster, with its ominous "What were they trying to keep out?" tagline under the actor's giant mug, looks like the Great Wall was built to defend China against Matt Damon. Mission failed, Wall).

5,5/10

Ascinating! Unlike anything I've seen before, and thoroughly entertaining at that. Spectacular visuals. Obviously heavy on CGI, but boy, is it entertaining and a visual feast! One thing, though, the film would have been better without Willem Dafoe's character, who is passive and only there when he is really needed, otherwise does not really serve a purpose. The lack of consideration for the killing off of Matt Damon's friends in the film is also a bit worrying, as if they're soul-less creatures.

If you're not into monsters, though, you might want to give this one a skip.

i heard all the bad critique levied against this film, and it was almost by accident that i wound up watching it.

Matt Damon is a ruff n gruff explorer / mercenary in vaguely- historical ancient china. He's come to find the secret of "the black powder" (gunpowder), and soon finds himself captured by the Chinese, and taken to The Great Wall.

The fictitious Great Wall is .. kinda like the great wall, but if Michael Bay had a go at rewriting it. Fireballs, explosions, and CGI monsters quickly follow, along with much Wuxia fighting, an all- women army, Willem Defoe in the part of "The Guy Who Speaks English", and the very beautiful Tian Jing as the co-star of the film.

I recently ripped apart the horrible Gods Of Egypt; well, this film isn't too different, relying on CGI and over the top action to tell the story, but fortunately TGW doesn't overdo it as much, and the end result is something quite watchable and fun. The brief moments of acting are quite passable. (the only critique i could raise to Damon, is that he starts the film trying to play a different character, but quickly returns to his typical Jason Bourne thing)

The Great Wall is a fun CGI film with monsters. I would recommend this popcorn film to anyone looking for an afternoon of fun, and since there aren't any scenes with gore, or particularly scary stuff, it's OK for families with kids as well.

Good film. i like.

7/10 - it is what it is.

THE GREAT WALL is the latest big collaboration between Hollywood and China, telling a LORD OF THE RINGS-style fantasy epic about the defenders of the Great Wall against a horde of alien beasts bent on destruction. As an international production, this features a Hollywood lead cast and a supporting Chinese cast, with the great Andy Lau playing in support as a wise elder.

This is one of those films that was heavily criticised by reviewers, unfairly so in my opinion. It's nothing more than a light popcorn film, full of spectacle and not much else, and that's fine by me. The CGI creatures look decent in a comic book style and the big battle sequences are exciting and well-staged. Famed director Zhang Yimou has a really great way of depicting colour in his films and this is a beautiful one to watch, particularly with those multi-coloured stained glass windows at the climax.

Matt Damon is the solid, sometimes stolid, lead, his accent wavering between American and pan Scottish-Irish. Pedro Pascal is the comic relief, building on his GAME OF THRONES role. Willem Dafoe has fun as a shadier character, while Tian Jing is one of those typical idealistic young Chinese girls, a martial arts expert and endlessly heroic. THE GREAT WALL is a simple action romp, nothing less and nothing more, and yet it held my attention throughout and offered up something genuinely new.

Matt Damon and Pedro Pascal are looking for 'black powder' in China and find themselves by chance in the middle of a massive battle between the elite Chinese army and an endless supply of unstoppable monster creatures that could have come straight out of Lord of the Rings.

There is so much wrong with this film, I really don't know where to start, but I'll give it a stab. The plot is rubbish, the dialogue is garbage, the acting is wooden, and I didn't really care for any characters in this film, that's just to start with! It was like watching a computer game made from a weird Chinese fable. I imagine this is what Cirque Du Soleil does when not performing on stage.

I appreciate that the producers needed a big name on the poster to draw an audience but why on earth did 'Jason Bourne' agree to make this garbage. Pedro Pascal's character is reasonably fun, which is why I gave 1 star (though I couldn't give less).

With a few tweaks, this could have been a comedy spoof and it would have been so much better if they had done that instead of trying to make a serious film!

Stay away or they'll make The Great Wall2 (AGGGHHHHH!!!)

The story is simple, William and Tovar have travelled across Asia in search of the oft- rumoured black powder that could pose as the most revolutionary weapon of the time. Pursued across northern China, they come face-to-face with the Great Wall, which was not built for the purpose of keeping out the Mongolians, but as the last line of defence against a hive-mind horde of lizards that seek to devour the world. The wall is occupied by a vast Chinese army who look more like an army of Power Rangers; there's the black footsoldiers, the purple shielders, the red archers, the blue "Crane Corps", and the...yellow ones. Cue action sequence after action sequence as William and Tovar attempt to escape.

The pacing is simply dreadful. This is an epic movie about the struggle between China and the lizard monsters, with Matt Damon in the middle of it all, but it rushes through everything to get to the cool bits. We open with William and Tovar being pursued by Mongolians in the desert, they kill a lone lizard, and then suddenly seem shocked that there's a massive thousand-mile long wall directly in front of them (would've thought they'd have seen it). They're dragged inside, there's a little bit of talking, and then the lizards attack. One of the big climaxes of the movie happens so soon with little character development behind it; we barely even know our main characters before they're thrust into life-threatening situations. The movie cuts randomly to other scenes, completely devoid of any transitions or thought behind them. For example there's an attack on the wall and one of the generals stabs one of the lizards in the throat by getting between it's jaws, and suddenly he's dead and they're holding a funeral. Another example is one of William and Tovar's companions just disappears in the opening scenes. There's four of them, one gets carried away by the lizard, they kill the lizard, and then there's only two of them. What even happened to the third guy?

Dialogue is clunky and awful as well. This is Yimou Zhang's first English-language movie (majority, anyway), and it's clear he has no handle of English at all. Matt Damon, Pedro Pascal, and Willem Dafoe deliver their lines meticulously and robotically, using language as simple as possible, making it sound unnatural and unlike the way any English-speaker talks. Of course I can't comment on the Chinese bits of dialogue, but their delivery certainly sounds more natural. Even the English spoken by Chinese actress Tian Jing sounds better and more natural, particularly in the way a non-native speaker would speak it. This sounds like nit-picking, but it's less about the language itself, and more about how it makes the dialogue simplistic, cheesy, and just sound plain awful in it's delivery. I don't blame Damon, Pascal or Dafoe at all (well maybe a little bit), I blame the script.

Linked to this is the humour, which often seems out-of-place, badly delivered, and is more goofy than genuinely amusing. There's one character who seems to be the staple of every Asian movie; a clumsy goof who can't do anything right and just gets himself into trouble time and time again, just for the sake of comedy value. Much of the dialogue jokes just aren't funny either, such as Matt Damon dissing his companion and his companion, from the other side of the door, saying "I heard that". Hahahaha, hilarious.

I will admit though, the action sequences are pretty great. The first big battle, as soon and lacking in genuine threat as it is, is definitely a spectacle. Seeing the rainbow army assemble and use interesting strategies to combat the horde is definitely interesting to watch, particularly the all-female, blue-armoured "Crane Corps" (awful name, I know) who stand on planks held over the wall, with a crude bungie chord attached, who then dive into the horde with spears. The application of gun powder on arrows as well seems like an ingenious way to delivering miniature bombs onto the enemy.

The other thing I won't deny is how visually impressive it all looks. Yimou Zhang is renowned for his eye for breathtaking visuals, and The Great Wall is no exception. As cheesy as the concept is, and as much as I poke fun at it, the rainbow army does look great, and creates some really fantastic imagery. Similarly, the big climax takes place in a stain-glass tower filled with a cacophony of colour that would make any television marketer weep for joy. The design of the lizards is also really interesting as well, with the grunts having their eyes on their shoulders, leaving their heads as massive chomping appendages. The queen's vibrating crown and her towering guard of shield lizards also look really cool. There's no denying, the CGI in this movie is on point.

Seriously, the claims of whitewashing and cultural appropriation were the least of this film's worries. Those claims of course were complete bullshit to begin with; Matt Damon was cast to play a European character, and to draw in Western audiences (the same way a lot of Hollywood blockbusters are making sure they have Asian actors to draw in the Chinese markets), so it's not like he was taking the role from a Chinese actor (of which, to be fair, 99% of the cast are Chinese). The Great Wall lacks in every department it matters. Sure it's a great looking movie with some impressive action sequences, but there's no character at all, the dialogue is cringeworthy, cheesy, and just flat-out bad, and the story's pacing keeps it from being an enthralling experience. I was genuinely starting to fall asleep last night. I give The Great Wall a don't-bother 4/10 (saved from anything lower thanks to the visual spectacle it offers)

The Great Wall

On this films cinematic release I decided to give it a miss. This was down to the unjustified reviews that the movie suffered. I finally got around to watching this movie when it became available on satellite TV. Granted this is not Matt Damon's finest work and I can't see him stepping up and giving one of his fabulous speeches come Oscar night for this one. However as a piece of throw away entertainment this film ticks all the right boxes.

The movie has a simple plot that The Great Wall of China was built to keep out something rather nasty. The nasty things in question are dragon like creatures that roam the land eating everyone in their path. Alive or dead! As events unfold Matt Damon's character injures one of the beasts and then stumbles upon the Great Wall where an entire army struggle to stop the monsters breaching the giant structure.

I sat through this film waiting for the negativity that it was given to present itself on screen. It never came. Instead the lean 1hr 43 mins runtime was just enough to entertain me. The film looks fabulous. Colours pop and the breath taking landscapes sweep majestically across screen.

Director Yimou Zhang has crafted a beautiful looking film that is partially let down by the average CGI. Don't get me wrong the effects aren't Sharknado bad, they're just a little too slick to be believable. The creatures don't have a realistic texture that brings them to life. Instead they seem over worked and there's no tricking the human eye when it comes to special effects. If it doesn't look authentic it can destroy the whole experience. Thankfully costume and set design are marvellous and this reinstalls an aire of quality that had been partially taken away by the dull CGI. The final set piece is a true feast for the eyes as a bombardment of hues shine through stained glass illuminating the scene.

I think The Great Wall is best viewed in HD or 4K to get the greatest representation of what the director intended. Modern Cinema screens can sometimes appear too dim and not vibrant enough to do this film justice. It's a movie that looks good, it sounds good and by being just under two hours it doesn't out stay it's welcome.

I love this genre of movies. I was so excited to watch this movie, but then I kept waiting for it to get better and it never did.

Matt Damon and Pedro Pascal started this movie with great stunts, killing animated beings that were designed below par. Anyway, then came along Willam Dafoe, and well, his presence and contribution to the entire plot were redundant. The entire plot was a poor story, poorly animated beasts, a no-brainer solution, shi8y hot air balloons and a mighty waste of Matt & Dafoe talent.

I came back from this movie sad.