The Great Wall (2017)

The Great Wall has all the hallmarks of trying too hard and very few of the hallmarks of actually being a good movie. Produced and directed by Chinese film makers, the film is written by and stars westerners. It ends up feeling neither Chinese or western but sort of the least of both.  Okay least is an overstatement. It's really not terrible. It's just not that great either.

Director Yimou is one of my favorites but The Great Wall doesn't have much in common with his other films. His films are usually beautiful, staged in a manner which sets them apart visually. He uses visual cues like colour and space to add depth to the way he tells his stories. The Great Wall doesn't feel like he's added any of that. Instead it feels like it's trying to be The Lord of the Rings.

Critics have been upset about "whitewashing" and the film makers have spoken out saying that's not what's happening here. They say it's a Chinese film made by Chinese film makers and that the western actors are just part of the ensemble. Did they see the same movie I saw? The film centres the story around the westerners, we experience the story from their point of view. Perhaps there is a different edit shown in China but that's not what I understand to be truth. So instead we see this film where Matt Damon really does ride in and save the day.

Perhaps if the film had been more compelling and less typical that might have been overcome. But the story of The Great Wall is standard pedestrian action fantasy fare. Without anything setting it apart, it just feels, well, standard. Its story is fine enough. The effects are fine enough. The battle set pieces are fine enough. Nothing made me go "wow!" It has none of the mystical depth that Yimou's previous films enjoyed, nor any of the beautiful craziness of recent Chinese blockbusters like The Mermaid for example. Instead it just feels like another action movie. Just another like we've seen before.

The Great Wall
Starring: Matt Damon, Jing Tian, Pedro Pascal, Andy Lau, Willem Dafoe, Zhang Hanyu
Director: Zhang Yimou
Writers: Carlo Bernard, Doug Miro, Tony Gilroy