The Great Wall review

The Great Wall is an American/Chinese co-production about two mercenaries who come across the Great Wall of China while in search of "black powder". Once arriving they are brought into a fight against mythical creatures.

I found The Great Wall to be a fun film which is deeply flawed. By all means it is a terrible movie, but when the action scenes came around I couldn't help but have some fun with it. If you're wanting to see a good mix of entertaining CGI sequences, a strong story and interesting characters, then watch something else.

As a whole it is all surface. There are almost no character arcs, some ridiculously cheesy dialogue, a very thin story, and even during its stronger scenes there is CGI that does not blend in to the scene well at all. There were several moments when people in the screen were laughing out loud, and I couldn't tell whether they were laughing with or at the movie. There are many parts of the film which feel like there are parts missing and story points that make no sense. The choppy editing made me think that the film released in China is longer than the one released in the UK.

None of the characters were very interesting, and some I even question what their role in the film was. Willem Dafoe is never given much to do, and is mainly there for exposition. The controversy behind Matt Damon's casting was not deserved, as he is written as a western character who is not a white saviour, is seen as morally ambiguous, and helps by being a skilled archer. His accent, however, is something else. It is all over the place and would sometimes go from American to English to Irish to Spanish in the space of one scene.

The visuals are wonderful and are most of what the film has it going for it. Yimou Zhang does brilliantly at making the film look good. But there are times where one monster is interacting with humans and it doesn't look natural at all. There are also shots derivative of World War Z, The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. There is also a scene at the beginning in a cave where the mercenaries are attacked. It is shot really badly and I couldn't tell who did what and who died until the next shot two days later where you see the surviving characters.

I think it's possible that in a few years time, this will be a film which has a following who watch it because it's so bad it's good.

In short: The Great Wall is rubbish but enjoyable.