'The Great Wall' is As Flimsy and Disposable As Takeout Chopsticks

Nameless Order... and uhh white dude-- Assemble!!!!

The Great Wall is a Derivative Summery Escape

With their blades drawn, and plate armor donned, the colourfully garbed soldiers on the Great Wall face off against a horde of invaders on the dark horizon during an opening battle sequence. These invading foes are anything but human. Just released on DVD The Great Wall reimagines the historic monument as the key lines of defense in a supernaturally-tinged creature feature. The Great Wall is set in 11th century China, and follows two Westerners who come searching for the rumoured mythical black powder that can be found in the East. Instead of finding the fabled powder William (Matt Damon) and Tovar (Pedro Pascal)  instead get up close and personal with some rabid reptilian beasts and after surrendering to the soldiers on the wall, get caught in the midst of a battle of man versus monster.

Acclaimed director Zhang Yimou takes a stab at entertaining the masses in this explosive action-adventure romp. It’s full of bangs and bright lights and CGI creatures. It’s LOUD. It’s ENORMOUS. And at times, even fun! But mostly, it’s kind of empty. Lacking heart and soul and with the duo of poor character development and shaky plot, it doesn’t take much for the The Great Wall to come crumbling down.

The great defenders!!!

Our fierce defenders on the Great Wall are known as the Nameless Order. These soldiers have been fighting packs of monsters for 60 years. Exposition from the imposing General Shao (Hanyu Zang) and agile Commander Lin Mae (Tian Jing) reveals that 20 centuries ago a greedy Emperor screwed over China. Big time. So, the gods in the heavens above retaliated with some divine intervention: a meteor struck Gouwu Mountain releasing the Tao Tei, which are the warped result of  the Emperor’s “unchecked greed”. The magic of CGI imagines them as scaley green hyena-dragon hybrids. They furiously scurry towards the wall, hissing and growling, with the frilled heads of a desert lizard and sharp rows of piranha teeth. The Tao Tei are a conglomeration of dozens of scary creatures, which means that their Frankenbeast appearances are actually not scary. At all. There’s too much going on at once.

aaand then there's this guy....

At the heart of the plot, the big threat that’s looming over the soldiers is that if the Tao Tei breach the wall and make it the capital, Biànliáng, and chow down on every human being there, they’ll be strong enough to take over the world. Huh...okay...sure.

If these antagonists, the Tao Tei, are props that means the characters in The Great Wall are essentially puppets. The set design is sprawling and impressive. The battlements on the wall, the elaborate banquet hall where the soldiers convene and the gilded glittering palace of the boy-king emperor are dazzling to behold. But, the main characters, led by a wooden and flat Matt Damon, that populate these lavishly detailed quarters and march across the screen are a little lifeless. They go through the motions but it’s very rehearsed. There have been outcries from media fans and critics before The Great Wall even hit the cinemas about its whitewashing. 

And in particular, the whole white savior complex that’s at the core of the plot and storyline. Yes the bulk of the cast are Chinese. We get a lot of Chinese faces. But we don’t get to really know their characters aside from Lin and the shy combat officer Peng Yong (Han Lu) and the rugged battle-ready Strategist Wang (Andy Lau). All of the other Generals, Commanders and soldiers are forgettable.  Our pivotal action hero, William, is a white man, with all of the charisma of a bone-dry hunk of petrified wood. Or some dull, gray, heavy stone. We find out William has fought for “many flags” but never felt a love or loyalty or trust to any of them. He’s a mercenary through and through. But Damon comes off as bland and uninterested. Even his action scenes are just mechanical. There’s no spirit or energy fueling what he does. It’s one of the most joyless performances I’ve seen on screen in a while.

Commander Lin, William & C. trekking through the tunnels.

William takes down the Tao Tei by stabbing them with spears and arrows moments into joining the foray on the wall. Literally in this hot minute of combat, sticking them with the pointy ends earns William the respect of his captors and a place for himself on the wall. William essentially becomes the dashing, noble, hero, and he explains everything to the Nameless Order. Mind you, these soldiers are trained strategists many of which who’ve dedicated their entire lives to learning everything about the Tao Tei and taking them out. Yet, William strolls right in and gives them commands that they ought to have come up with on their own. Come on. It turns out lately the Nameless Order is not doing so hot. Why? Because the Tao Tei are evolving.  But still, there’s no way the Nameless Order has been floundering around like a bunch of morons fighting a fruitless battle. These defenders surely have their own extensive knowledge. Yet they seem totally green and positively clueless next to William. So much for elite warriors.

Two other supporting characters are Sir Ballard and Tovar. Ballard  (Willem Dafoe) is the other white man on the wall. He has been there as a captive for 25 years and just skulks around watching the soldiers.  Tovar, (Pedro Pascal) is William’s skeptical Spanish sidekick. He starts off as the comic relief. But changes his tune when the going gets rough on the wall. It doesn’t take long for him to shed his identity as William’s partner-in-crime, and tag-teams with Ballard to loot the armory for black powder and weapons and book it off the wall; fleeing to freedom, escaping their captivity and the claws and fangs of the Tao Tei.

The Great Wall isn’t just some disaster movie. There are some ways it really does succeed beyond the previously mentioned set design and costuming. Amongst the colour-coded soldiers manning the walls is the Crane Squad. They’re exclusively women and they fight by flying “down” from the battlements. Hooked up to bungees they dive off big spokes that stick out from above the wall --off what looks like a giant opened paper fan-- and skewer the Tao Tei with their lances. In these eye catching sequences, their acrobatics are of Shen Yun caliber.

Lin Mae prepares for take off!

Leader of the Crane Squad, Commander Lin Mae (Tian Jing) is one of the best things about The Great Wall and the reason why this earned more than 1 star from me. She’s a woman of colour in a position of highest authority. She’s consistently respected and her gender isn’t ever used as something against her, or brought up at all. There’s no “fight like a girl” nonsense here. And she’s not also isn’t used as some cutesy love interest. There are some moments between her and William where it looks like they’re headed away from mutual acquaintance territory towards relationship zone: sucking face and getting jiggy with it. But it doesn’t actually happen. No hot and steamy great wall sex scenes here! Instead, this fierce female discovers the key to killing the Tao Tei is magnets. They deafen them cut into the kind of brain signals that keeps them working under their Queen. It breaks their pack mentality and leaves them immobilized and open to be taken out by the Nameless Order. In this way they’re a lot like the Velociraptors in Jurassic World. *sigh* Derivative.

The climax of The Great Wall comes when Lin and William and the other soldiers discover the Tao Tei have already breached the wall, and have been tunneling beneath. They’ve already carved their way to Biànliáng. The logic in The Great Wall and this not-so-great twist, snaps as quickly and easily as the wooden takeout chopsticks that come in the little paper envelopes. The story here is just as disposable as them too.

The Nameless Order getting ready to rumblllllle.

The Great Wall had the makings of being a full throttle escapist, guilty pleasure ride. Think: Keanu Reeve’s 2013 feudal Japan drama-fantasy 47 Ronin,  but instead it is kind of a let down. Still, it’s a fun way to escape the summer heat wave for an hour and a half or so, as long as you’re willing to suspend your disbelief and roll with the ridiculousness that ensues. The Great Wall is a “junk food” movie, but it’s not a total failure. At least it’s far far far far better than the openly hated and unapologetically white-washed disaster that was Gods of Egypt (2016).