The Great Wall

Every year there are one or two movies that I disagree with the general critic consensus on. 

It's no secret that I enjoy my big blockbusters more than most of them, but sometimes there are films, a lot like The Great Wall, that don't honestly have that much to offer. That leads to critics being rather vicious, unfairly so, and I think this is a prime example. 

I wasn't overly hyped to see The Great Wall. If I was, you would have had this review on Thursday evening/Friday morning. What I had seen had intrigued me and I was hoping that the previews were but little tidbits of some much cooler action and battles to come. 

The Great Wall represents a film that is precisely what it aims to be. It knows that the Oscars are likely not going to happen and it wants to tell the legendary tale (apparently just one of many) of The Great Wall that winds and weaves throughout China. Does it all make sense? Not really, no. Does that hurt the film though? Again...not really, no. It wants to be a visually-pleasing and action packed blockbuster that has fun with its setting, its characters, and its monsters. I was pleasantly surprised with how much I enjoyed the film, particularly the first half of it and I give it praise for how ambitious it is. The Great Wall isn't taking many risks by getting an A-list star in a blockbuster that attracts two of the largest movie markets in the world, but it's commendable that it didn't just turn into a lazily directed and boring action spectacle. 

Of course, The Great Wall isn't perfect. The script is sincerely God-awful at times and had me almost laughing. The only parts that work well are its humor, but those moments aren't frequent enough to overly praise. Basically anything with speaking in this film is a main issue for a variety of reasons. The script is pretty bad, sure, but Damon's accent is also abhorrent. I have no idea what kind of accent it was -- at times it sounded like he was trying to do an Asian accent, almost offensively so, even though his character is explained as a Westerner. Why he didn't just stick with a non-Boston normal accent (i.e. The Martian) is beyond me but it was more distracting than anything here. Additionally, anytime there are English and Chinese characters speaking in the same room, the film is overly committed to its language barriers. The Chinese characters will speak, with subtitles provided below, and then a Chinese translator will explain what was said to the English participants (Matt Damon) in the room. This happens vice versa too so you can imagine there are several conversations that become highly repetitive until our Chinese characters decide to start speaking English. It's unfortunate that not as much forethought was provided to the film's dialogue as was to the battles. 

None of these stills will contain Mr. Damon because
the battles are the real stars of the show

The story here is straightforward and simple, not meant to be overly complex. There are monsters on one side of the wall and if they make it past the wall, it's likely the end of the world. Nothing special there and it doesn't come across as it in the film either. There are attempts at discussing honor and trust and a late subplot that really detracts from the finale. The film also never details why the Great Wall needed to be so long when there's only a small (in comparison) section that is ever threatened by these monsters. But hey, logic be damned when we're talking about monsters attacking the Great Wall of China here. 

By now you may be wondering if there's anything I actually liked about the film since that's what I said up top. To that I'd point you to the magnificent battles. I wouldn't be surprised to find one of them in my Top 15 Scenes at the end of the year and they are magnificently crafted with a lot of care, inventiveness, and visual aesthetics. Luckily the film doesn't take long to dive into the first major battle after Damon and Co. are captured and witness the horrors of the monster's first siege. It's here that we're introduced to the insanely colorful and elegant Chinese army. I for one really appreciated the color and it was this single addition that added a lot to each battle scene. Seeing a soldier in bright blue armor fight against a wave of green monsters with crimson blood smeared on their armor (or green blood from the monsters on their weapon) is something that just sits well with your eyes. Instead of the dull greys, browns, and blacks of typical warfare, The Great Wall inserts bursts of yellow, purple, red, and blue to great effect. It sounds small but makes a ton of difference. This color is a theme throughout the movie and even in the final battle (easily the weakest and most fake-looking of them all) there is a great spectrum of it that makes it that much better. 

This is exactly how my bungee jump from a few years ago went

The battles are inventive and well staged too. There's great editing as well which, combined with some awesome slow-motion, makes for some near "f**k yeah!" moments of monster killing. It's all highly implausible and it knows that, fully embracing it. From dive bombing spear women to axe throwings that bounce in mid air, it's almost laughably preposterous, but most importantly, it's a ton of fun. The scale of the battle is reminiscent of those found in Lord of the Rings and I'd dare say the quality comes awfully close to matching those at times. Particularly in the first half of the film, it continues to throw new things at you (whistling tracking arrows or rotating blades within the Wall, anyone?), keeping everything exciting and the first half packed so full that time melts away. Hell, there's even some awesome shots of the drum-thumping original score where our Blue Warriors are pounding away at drums with unique ball-on-string utensils. Unfortunately it loses a bit of its thoughtfulness in the finale, though even here there are still a couple cool moments, and the CG takes a bit of a nosedive there too.

A poem for my readers: Watch Blue Lady catch spear.
Watch Blue Lady jump.
Watch Blue Lady violently stab monster in face.

I already know that I enjoyed The Great Wall more than most. I'm perfectly okay with that. It does some things shockingly poor, and overall it's not anything that will stay on your mind for more than a week or two. That is, except for the battles, which I imagine I'll continue to come back to throughout the year with fond memories because they're so fun, imaginative, colorful, and well done that I find almost no faults when the film projector is displaying these moments.

CONS

• Matt Damon's accent
• Subtitles + translators = us getting to hear bad dialogue twice. Yay!
• Poor script
• Kinda useless subplot on the tail end of the movie
• CG decrease in quality for finale 

PROS

• Damon is a strong lead in films, as we've seen many times before
• Keeps the story simple
• Inserts some humor here and there
• Wonderful battles that are packed to the brim with color and awesome visuals
• Unique and cool monster design
• A fair more gory than I thought it would be -- though an R-rated version of this would have been insane
• Spectacular use of color throughout and there's a lot of thoughtfulness to making each new battle unique. Some real inventive and awesome moments to be had
• Great battle editing and I enjoyed the hell out of the slow-motion kills

Rath's Review Score | 7.5/10