'The Great Wall' Review

In The Great Wall European mercenaries searching for "black powder" (gun powder) stumble across the Great Wall of China and are drawn into a conflict between China's militia and an army of monsters to protect not only China, but the world itself.

The Great Wall has been surrounded by plenty of whitewashing controversy for casting Matt Damon in the lead role of what's actually the most expensive Chinese production ever made. Is the controversy justified? Not really, and I'll explain why shortly. First of all, Damon is surrounded by LOTS of Chinese talent in front of and behind the camera. Second of all, this film is not based on any pre-existing events, myths, or legends whatsoever. Therefore, Damon's character William was always intended to be a European outsider considering this film's an original idea. It's not as if they cast Damon in the role of an Asian character for some odd reason. Thirdly, Damon's role isn't quite what many are assuming. His character isn't subjecting European ideals on the Chinese and he's definitely not a "white savior" or "hero" of this story, in fact he's almost a supporting asset in terms of how he contributes to the action. Did his character need to be there? Not really... In fact, the movie may have been better without him and the tangled subplots surrounding his side of things but I wouldn't consider his inclusion to be whitewashing. If anything, Matt Damon was involved because a film this ambitious unfortunately needs respected American actors to headline if they're going to be green-lit by studio executives.

Visionary director Zhang Yimou helms the sprawling Chinese blockbuster and his inclusion permits The Great Wall's aesthetic to flourish. The cinematography, production design, battle armor, action sequences and visual effects are all admittedly impressive elements to be found in The Great Wall. The action sequences include wall sieges reminiscent to the Battle of Helm's Deep from The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers or the zombie wall ascension from World War Z and a third act finale that feels like a convoluted final boss fight from a video game. The Tao Tei monster design is undeniably original as they look like lizard dog creatures you might come across in a video game.

Back to the action, you'll find the sequences are cool in the moment and will scratch your "awesome archer Matt Damon vs a CG-monster army" itch but none of which were particularly memorable or engaging due to flat characterization. If you don't care about the characters, it's difficult to get engaged in the action and that fault lies with the screenplay penned by Carlo Bernard, Doug Miro, and Tony Gilroy with a story treatment from Max Brooks, Edward Zwick, and Marshall Heskovitz.

The characters remain fairly static throughout and are scarcely developed so you never really connect or care about them at all for that matter. There's a "character arc" for Damon as William that he supposedly redeems himself from a hardened mercenary to a genuine hero but the film fails to really show any despicable actions on William's part. This in turn makes it difficult to believe he was ever a "bad guy" considering all his contrary selfless acts of heroism shown throughout. As for the story itself, the film spreads itself thin with pointless side quests that you won't care about. The story's stretched thin but it feels unbelievably and unnecessarily bloated, I would have preferred two hours defending the Great Wall of China because the early combat sequences showed promise for that side of things despite displaying way too much of the Chinese preparation.

The cast also don't do much to pick up the slack as no-one really shone through. I'm saddened to say this is probably the worst Matt Damon performance I have ever seen, which really is a shame considering Damon's proven himself capable of leading an action blockbuster before. Damon nails the action side of things but makes an odd decision to mesh Irish and Scottish accents and the end result's incredibly inconsistent. Outside of his accent, Damon practically sleepwalks through this movie with dry dialogue delivery.

Tian Jing's Lin Mae makes a strong showing but I wish her character had been more developed for me to actually care about her. Jing is surprisingly not the cliché love interest or sex appeal so thank goodness for that! In the remaining supporting arsenal Game of Thrones' Pedro Pascal serves his part as Damon's sidekick Tovar while Willem Dafoe's Ballard is the typical greedy merchant, an absolute waste of Dafoe's talents. A positive aspect of The Great Wall I forgot to mention earlier is its epic score from Game of Thrones composer Ramin Djawdi. Djawdi has proven himself capable of crafting epic sweeping scores that match the intended grandiose nature of the project and he succeeds once again here.

In conclusion, The Great Wall isn't offensively bad, it's probably something you won't mind catching on cable but it's not worth two hours of your time or the price of admission at the cinema. The visuals don't quite redeem the lackluster story and forgettable characters, but they do make The Great Wall slightly more watchable.

Film Assessment: C-