Indeed, Pacific Rim and Godzilla are in some ways forbears to Zhang’s disappointing film. (Or was it the other way around? Who among us can confidently recall?) Memo to Zhang: If you’re looking for “generic white action hero” go the Pacific Rim/ Godzilla route and hire Charlie Hunnam/Aaron Taylor-Johnson. His character is meant to be Irish, but I would never have guessed it from his accent, which sounds like the flattened-out grumble that one occasionally gets when British actors try to play Americans. Perhaps the greatest disappointment is Damon, who for the first time in memory seems to have absolutely no idea what he’s doing onscreen. Virtually every plot development is telegraphed in advance, and to call the supporting characters two-dimensional would be to insult planar surfaces.
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There are conspicuous echoes of movies as varied as Lord of the Rings, Starship Troopers, How to Train Your Dragon, and Mulan.Īlas, Zhang’s moments of visual splendor-a battalion of hot-air balloonists, the queen-monster and her royal guard of fan-frilled monstrosities-are weighed down by a script and performances almost dutiful in their dullness. The defensive forces are resplendent in brightly laminated armor that would not be out of place in Marvel’s Asgard: black for foot-soldiers red for archers and, best of all, an all-female cadre of “crane warriors” led by Lin Mae (Jing), who take lances in hand and hurl themselves down from the high parapets like bungee-jumping amazons. Giger, and you won’t be far off.) These toothy creatures hurl themselves at the wall by the thousands every 60 years, like really, really ornery cicadas.Īs in the past-even in his second-tier films such as Curse of the Golden Flower-Zhang’s palette is a chromatic marvel.
(Envision a pitbull as reimagined by H.R. (For one thing it’s too short to be, clocking in at a merciful 104 minutes in an era when CGI epics frequently approach twice that.) But it’s certainly not a good one.ĭamon plays William, a rogue who makes the perilous journey to China in search of “black powder,” a fabled substance that can “turn air into fire.” The others in his mercenary band are all killed en route, save for Tovar (Pascal), who with William discovers an unimaginably vast wall garrisoned by selfless warriors called the “Nameless Order.” Their mission, he learns, is to protect China against the Tao Tei, hideous quadrupeds with eyeballs in their shoulder blades. The Art Movement That Embraced the Monstrous Sophie Madeline DessĪlas, rather than multiply these talents productively, The Great Wall reduces them to their lowest common denominator. And as a general rule, Damon is as reliably excellent a lead actor as you’ll find anywhere in Hollywood. The cast includes talented American actors in Willem Dafoe and Pedro Pascal (who was magnificent as Oberyn Martell on Game of Thrones) and Chinese stars both relatively new (Jing Tian) and firmly established (the great Andy Lau). Zhang has directed sophisticated dramas ( Ju Dou, Raise High the Red Lantern) and thrilling action pictures ( Hero, House of Flying Daggers). The Great Wall, a Chinese-American co-production starring Matt Damon as a European mercenary fighting (literal) monsters during the Song dynasty, could have been a marvel. But, to paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld, you go to the cineplex with the army you have. It’s probably safe to presume that, had he known the political climate into which he would be dropping his debut English-language film, the legendary Chinese director Zhang Yimou would have chosen a subject other than the heroism of warriors defending an immense national wall against an invasion of horrifying aliens.