The Great Wall

First of all, this movie does a lot of things right. The costume designs are great, the set designs are very convincing and the CGI is, although not cutting edge, up to modern standards in film-making. The music score could have been better but maybe the composer had a Chinese audience in mind.

The acting will not win any Oscars but we see some genuine moments of emotion and bonding and believe it or not but there are one or two scenes with a good suspense arc. Moreover, Jing Tian has a nice smile and looks really fine in uniform. That might be my own idiosyncratic standard but an attractive female lead certainly adds to the "positives".

With all that praise then, why does it fall short of being a truly great movie? As my summary indicates it is simply overloaded with too many plot devices. It's a hero/East meets West/monster/action/tale of betrayal and redemption/romance/fantasy movie loaded with Chinese symbolism capped by a rather weak, anticlimactic and hurried cookie-cutter ending. The audience never has enough time to get emotionally invested in the characters. The script tries but there simply isn't enough time to do it all and eventually the movie does too little to explore any of the plot elements and characters.

Nevertheless, it is not a bad movie and certainly not ambitious enough to deserve any of the vitriol people read into the story without ever watching the movie. I was entertained but not really awestruck.

Matt Damon, given his predicament and the backlash of being a white person cast in a move that was based in China, still gave a great performance. The plot was nothing special, but I throughly enjoyed the concept. The cinematography was beautifully shot and the colors throughout the movie make it very pleasing to the eyes. Without the camera work, this would not be a good movie. I think this movie is still worth a watch.

If you don't have any expectations, this film might surprise you a bit. I really liked the special effects, even if I started laughing when I first saw the antagonists.

Most scenes between battles were quite awkward, full of clichés. Yet, once the battle begins, any cliché this film might have is really fun to watch and not at all annoying.

What I hated the most was the unfortunate English accent... used during the Song dynasty (960-1279).

Overall, the plot is quite linear and simple and is centered around one important moment. Character development was welcoming, but not impressive and definitely not unexpected. The best part was not fulfilling the love sub-plot, even though I half expected this and I would have been really disappointed if it had happened.

Anyway, it was an enjoyable film with better 3D effects than I expected and many other films, so give it a try. But be open minded and admire what is to be admired.

The Great Wall surprised me a lot, and I believe that the fact that I watched the movie without expecting anything was important, I had no expectations, I had seen only 1 trailer and I went to see, I liked it a lot, first that the battles are good Made, the CGI is quite competent, obviously the battle is not Lord of the Rings level, but they are good, the soundtrack is good, the cast works, the characters are interesting, the movie sins in the script and the rhythm has problems, The film owes much to the battle that manages to bring a great entertainment, but if it were not for them the movie would be annoying, The Great Wall is a cool movie and worth watching. Note 6.7

As a constant film goer I was really impressed with this film. It was entertaining. The story worked well. The acting was great. And the effects were really impressive. I watched it on a big screen in Bangkok and enjoyed the experience. The sound was equally impressive.

I just can't understand why the really negative reviews abound. Some are cursing it for having foreign actors. Others about the political situation etc. And the poor director is even getting a caning.

The story is about a legend. And it was wonderful to just sit back and let someone tell a story. I nearly didn't go because of all the bad reviews but I am glad I went and made up my own mind.

Go and see it.