Four stars. Rated PG-13, for dramatic intensity and fantasy action violence
By Derrick Bang
According to report, this film
cost $150 million.
Rarely will you see money spent
so well. Every dollar is visible on the screen.
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| As a monstrous assault threatens to overwhelm the Great Wall's resident army, Lin Mae (Jing Tian) and her most trusted warriors — from left, William Garin (Matt Damon), Strategist Wang (Andy Lau) and an Imperial Guard soldier (Cheney Chen) — lead a small unit in a stealth mission, hoping to out-flank the creatures. |
Mayes C. Rubeo’s costumes alone
probably stretched the budget to the limit. If she doesn’t win the 2017 Academy
Award for costume design, there is no justice.
The Great Wall is one of the fabled “cast of
thousands” sagas that we’ve not seen for decades. Director Zhang Yimou’s period
adventure is a stylish, rip-snortin’ thrill ride that hits the ground running
and never lets up: an exciting and thoroughly entertaining blend of Aliens and 1964’s Zulu, with the athletic grace of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
It is, and well deserves to be
called, a true epic. And we also don’t get those
very often, these days.
Granted, the deliberate inclusion
of Western actors — apparently essential, to court the all-important American
market — is a bit of an eyebrow-lifter. Placing Matt Damon and Pedro Pascal in
12th century China, with little more than a token explanation of how their
characters could have gotten there,
is quite contrived; no surprise that this film’s six (!) credited scripters
didn’t try hard to explain it.
But once beyond that hiccup, the
story zips right along; Zhang paces and choreographs the complex action
sequences with the authority of a master conductor. That’s no surprise, coming
from the director who similarly entertained us with Hero and House of Flying
Daggers, along with equally compelling “straight” dramas such as Raise the Red Lantern and The Flowers of War.
Even the establishing tableaus
are breathtaking, as cinematographers Stuart Dryburth and Xiaoding Zhao
traverse the expanse of John Myhre’s production design. We’ve not seen world-building
on this scale since Peter Jackson’s Lord
of the Rings trilogy.
That comparison is apt for
another reason, since Damon’s amazing bow-and-arrow skills can’t help evoking
fond memories of Orlando Bloom’s Legolas.
The story begins with a prologue of
sorts, as William Garin (Damon) and his quintet of battle-scarred mercenaries
attempt to outrun a much larger desert tribe. Our mercenary heroes (?) have
come to Northern China in search of a fabled “black powder” that is capable of
making great weapons.
They successfully escape, camping
down for what they hope will be a restful night. But they’re suddenly attacked
by an unseen something that quickly
eviscerates all but William and Pero Tovar (Pascal). William manages to hack a
limb off the beast, which then plunges to its doom down a deep canyon. But the
severed claw is terrifying in its own right: huge, reptilian and unlike
anything they’ve ever seen.
