The Great Wall

The Great Wall (2016)

36% on Rotten Tomatoes (out of 143 reviews)

Runtime: 103 minutes

Directed by: Yimou Zhang

Starring: Matt Damon, Tian Jing, Willem Dafoe, Andy Lau, Pedro Pascal

From: Universal... and some Chinese companies

I am posting this at this hour as I'll be seeing a movie marathon today, which I'll explain when I return tomorrow. Talk of this cheesy yet fun movie is below:

I've mentioned before how in recent years China and the Chinese film market has become intertwined with Hollywood and its film market, so we have had Chinese actors appear in American films, Chinese companies co-finance big budget productions, and now we have a Chinese movie with some American actors as a wide release in the United States. Considering I've heard stories in the past about how China isn't always willing to send over the box office earnings to the film studios-not to mention all the controversy surrounding China as a whole... human rights violations, Communism and the like-hopefully this decision to pursue a gigantic film market and the almighty dollar isn't something that has dire ramifications for Hollywood in the future.

Anyhow, the movie on its own caused controversy. A segment of the Internet got really angry when they first heard about this; of course this was just based on only the film's title and knowing it starred Matt Damon. They leapt to conclusions and automatically thought “whitewashing” without any knowledge of the plot or how it was a mostly Chinese production filled with a mostly Chinese crew and actors, but why let facts get in the way of outrage?

I saw this film last night knowing already that many did not enjoy it; it's a big hit in China so I know it won't be a money-loser no matter what. After seeing it for myself, it technically isn't good between the story, some of the performances (whatever accent Damon had, it changed often so it's not worth figuring out what it was supposed to be) and a large amount of the English dialogue. After saying all that, I can still say it's “fine.” Honestly, it's a B movie and a much lower budget less elaborate version with practical effects, I'd imagine Golan-Globus or Roger Corman making it in the 80's or late 70's; at least for me it reminded me of the halcyon days of yore.

I presume by now that everyone is familiar with the general plot. I mean, a mutual I follow here admitted he didn't when he saw the movie yesterday but at this time, I imagine everyone knows how this is about Matt Damon, who is “from Europe” and he is with an odious pal and they wish to take some gunpowder and bring it back home. What a hell of a roadtrip that is. It becomes worse when you discover that The Great Wall of China was built in order to prevent monsters from attacking. While they only do it every 60 years, it took over 1,000 years to build it, and technically it was great WALLS until they were later joined. Again, I'll bring up, why let facts get in the way of a good story... they do say in the beginning this was a “legend” so I guess it's alright... maybe...

But enough of my blatherings. There are plenty of entertaining action scenes that are shot so they can be comprehensible (usually a novel idea in Hollywood these days), the CG monsters look like something from a videogame but in a charming way... it looks and sounds great, but that shouldn't be a shocker considering the director was Yimou Zhang. There are wacky over the top moments and plenty of bright/colorful outfits. The musical score is pretty entertaining, as was this movie to me. I knew it wouldn't be high art and it worked as popcorn fluff which wasn't cringe-worthy to me. While there's the whole “white savior” element, it's not as bad as it could have been and the leader of the territory that does battle with these creatures is a badass young woman who is pretty rad. How can I hate a movie which has such elements?