The Great Wall

THE GREAT WALL

Director : Zhang Yimou

Year : 2017

Genre : Fantasy

Rating : *

As a great admirer of his previous films 'Hero', 'Raise The Red Lantern' and especially 'House Of Flying Daggers', it is with a very heavy heart that I must write that director Zhang Yimou's first English language feature 'The Great Wall' is a total catastrophe of the highest order; built on the incredibly wobbly foundations of a dreadful script, lacklustre performances and a premise that is almost too ridiculous for words. 

A scraggly bearded and severely miscast Matt Damon stars alongside ex-'Games Of Thrones' heartthrob Pedro Pascal as a medieval mercenary whose quest for gunpowder leads them to Imperial China where they both become embroiled in the war between the soldiers of the Great Wall and the monstrous extraterrestrial carnivorous dinosaur thingys who threaten the safety of the world. Cue innumerable scenes of unconvincing CGI armies facing off against unconvincing CGI beasties on an unconvincing CGI wall while the usually charismatic Damon wanders around the place with the look of someone who is desperately regretting the choice to not star in the Oscar-winning 'Manchester By The Sea'. Oh, and Willem Dafoe pops up every so often for reasons that make literally no difference to the narrative.

To his credit, Yimou has always been a terrific visual artist and many scenes, while unbearably dull, are rather beautiful to look at. The many coloured armours of the soldiers and the vivid designs of the monsters are divertingly eye-catching, with one standout archery sequence that hearkens back to the director's far more interesting 'Flying Daggers' past. But with a screenplay that makes little to no sense, characters that have all of the dimension and believability of their bitey computer generated counterparts and filmmaking that is erratic to the point of complete incomprehensibility, 'The Great Wall' is from top to bottom a certified megabudget disaster. And not in a fun way.