THE GREAT WALL (2017) ***
They should’ve called The Great Wall Good Will Monster Hunting as it features Matt Damon acting like Legolas and bow-and-arrowing monsters from atop a giant wall for two hours. It’s about as good as a mid-range Hobbit movie too. There’s a nice sense of world-building and a handful of clever, if not stunning action sequences.
Damon plays a white “trader” looking for gunpowder who stumbles upon the Great Wall of China and finds himself in the midst of an ongoing battle between the local yokels and an evil alien race. Every sixty years, the beasts go out and forage fresh meat for their Queen. Of course, Matty Boy just so happened to show up on their doorstep right on year sixty. Since he’s handy with a bow, he figures he’ll stick around and fight until he can find their stash of gunpowder. It’s not until he begins to respect the people’s leader (Tian Jing) that he learns to give up his mercenary ways and fight for a cause worth fighting for.
I admired the way director Zhang Yimou choreographed the action. You have to appreciate the way he organizes the hundreds of extras (only some of which are CGI) and executed the massive battle sequences. Like his film Hero, there’s a real vibrant use of color (all the soldiers belong to color-coordinated regimens) and the cinematography is often breathtaking.
What the monsters lack in personality, they make up for in sheer number. Think the bugs from Starship Troopers and that might give you an idea of what we’re dealing with. I also have to praise the editors of the film’s trailers on their restraint. Most of what you saw of the monsters only happens in the first fifteen minutes or so of the movie. The flick has a lot more monster-mashing up its sleeve, and I for once appreciated the fact that they held back on showing much of the monster battles in the previews.
Throughout the film, I kept thinking that this is what The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies wanted to be. It’s a siege movie with long, sustained battle sequences with just enough plot to keep it all together until you get to the next monster fight. I liked the back-and-forth between Damon and Jing. Although Matt is miscast, he’s not bad and equips himself in this kind of tomfoolery rather well.
The real reason to see The Great Wall is for the 3-D. This is one of the rare instances where the filmmakers took great care into the 3-D effects. I’d imagine that if you saw this on cable a year from now, it might feel a bit ho-hum. However, if you see it on the biggest screen possible with the best 3-D system available, you’ll be in for a treat. There are more 3-D effects here than in the last two years’ worth of 3-D movies combined. I’m sure I missed a few of them, but here’s a litany of stuff that comes screaming towards your eyeballs throughout the picture:
• 3-D Arrow
• 3-D Acrobatic Warrior
• 3-D Female Breastplate
• 3-D Spear
• 3-D Ring
• 3-D Monster
• 3-D Gaping Monster Maul
• 3-D Platform
• 3-D Rope
• 3-D Harpoon
• 3-D Lantern
• 3-D Chain
• 3-D Axe
• 3-D Axe (again)
• 3-D Arrow (again)
• 3-D Ash
• 3-D Exploding Monster Chunks
• 3-D Magnet
• 3-D Hot Air Balloon
• 3-D Arrow (again)
• 3-D Spear (again)
• 3-D Matt Damon (not as good as the 3-D Zip-Lining Milla Jovovich from Resident Evil: The Final Chapter, but still pretty sweet)