From visionary director Yimou Zhang the talent behind films like “Curse of the Golden Flower” 2006, “House of Flying Daggers “ 2004 (one of my absolute favorite films), and a sleeper called “The Flowers of War” 2011 starring Christian Bale comes “The Great Wall”.
When European mercenaries William (Matt Damon) and Tovar (Pedro Pascal) in search of black powder come across China’s Great Wall they soon find out it’s true nature. Set in the Song dynasty era the film starts off with a glimpse of what would be the Great Wall’s mysterious threat.
With not much left to imagination your engulfed with a great battle which for action junkies would be a treat, but for story development fall flat. Some of China’s compelling cultural beauty lives in this film through out intricate costume designing seen on big screen. Movies like “ The Last Samurai” (2003) and “ 47 Ronin” (2013) share the same quality but with their most common similarity of a westerner who traveled east “The Great Wall” fell short on epic factor. Matt Damon Mr. Bourne himself couldn’t bring the film together as there was still something missing. Whether it was believability through some of its acting a major fail of the film for me was the CGI. In so many movies production focuses on 3D but to much and you’ll get less real so intern I couldn’t ignore some pretty obvious green screen over kill. Yet there was potential but because the lack of attention grabbing story I seen every flaw (what else was I to do).
Remember when 2007’s “300” hit theaters with 95 percent of the film being in CGI and you knew it was all fake? It was the story that won us moviegoers over. When “Transformers” helmer Michael Bay pushes the robots in disguise block buster’s there’s no argument the stories could be better, but what doesn’t fail are the special effects in those films. Unfortunately “The Great Wall” falls flat for me as I was entertained by some pretty cool cinematography but not convinced overall. Movies especially those not set in present day should take your mind to that world, and as for this film I was anywhere but that.
Far from great this action, fantasy, adventure is rated PG13 while entertaining and sometim