The Great Wall

constitutionus

kinda surprised theres no thread on this.

went to see it with the brother today- somewhat trepidatiously as its getting slammed by the critics.

i thought it was great !

seriously i dont get the hate being leveled at it from some quarters. dont get me wrong its not perfect by any stretch of the imagination. the "buddy" aspect is clunky scriptwise. but your not there for that, your there for the spectacle, and its exactly the type of film i can see dads bringing their 8 to 12yr old kids to for an afternoons entertainment

its a good aul fashined monster/seige film thatll have ya chomping the popcorn at a rate of knots . in fact if your to be precise its falls into science fiction territory - albeit one set in the middle ages. and at circa an hour and 40mins long it flew through to me.

alot of the complaints from the yanks seems to be virtue signalling social justice warrior types asking why a white guy is in this. the answer is very simple . beyond the star factor Damon brings to get butts on seats he's the only fecking reason ANY of this is in english.

seriously MOST of it is in mandarin. from what i can see the only reason willem defoe is in it is to explain why comander Lin speaks english at all. they even play that aspect up- with chinese generals making comments to damons character that she translates more diplomatically .

the reality is Damons character in this is really just a foil for the audience to get up to speed on the plot and his character arc is to have him finally have something worth fighting for beyond food or a paycheque. the rest of the heavy lifting is done by the Chinese cast of characters and you get some spectacular stuff off them.

theres some really lovely battle tactics and weaponry employed to take out the monsters. yes its dumb but in a weird way this is the closest your gonna get to an "aliens" attack on earth if it was set circa the first millennium and for that alone its kinda cool . the aliens themselves reminded me of "the brood" from Xmen . particualy the queen.



best of all for a 12s a film it did some unblockbustery stuff. people dying for instance . LOTS of people die , and its made plain that they did.

and

it was great to see some tropes avoided. Matt doesnt get the girl in the end. they just say their good byes and that that. despite he fact you KNOW he fancied her.

its was just so refreshing to see that.

also when they

use the balloons to fly to the capital. my inner nerd screamed "people wouldnt be able to do that for centuries !!! till its made blindingly obvous the VAST majority- imt talking 95 out of a hundred that tried - DIED trying to do it. seriouly the things were blowing up and crashing in flames left right and center.

so instead of having something incredibly incongruous , you actually end up with something that illustrated just how desperate they were instead.

anyway ive rambled on a bit too long here. basically i found this film to be ALOT more fun than its been made out to be and i really hope word of mouth gets out on it cause you can do alot worse. the visual alone are worth it.

7.5/10

and surprisingly so.

Fysh

Donald Glover gave it a fairly glowing review in the IT, which added to a promising-enough trailer has persuaded me to catch this. The runtime is an encouraging sign to me - films like this are at their best when they remember not to drag on for ages (MCU and DCEU, I'm looking at you both disapprovingly).

Mr E

Thinking of taking my niece and nephew to this tomorrow. Are there lots of subtitles?

FortuneChip

There's a fair few subtitles alright, but a lot of what's said is relayed to Damon in English (not always verbatim)


He's the reason people will go see the movie, but Matt Damon is definitely the weakest thing about it.
His accent(s) got laughs from the crowd when I went, it's all over the shop.

The set-up scenes prior to sieges are incredibly impressive, particularly the first "wave". Stunning visuals.

I'd very low expectations, but was pleasantly surprised.
It's a lot of fun.

Mr E

Really enjoyed it too. The whitewashing argument is completely ridiculous though. They were Europeans visiting China! They weren't playing Chinese people.

Subtitles were OK for the kids for the most part. There were a few quick flurries that I had to explain but most were fine.

Potential-Monke

I was really looking forward to this, and I wasn't let down. This film was never going to be about the story, it was always going to be about the visuals, and they didn't disappoint. Similar to what constitutionus said above, the first scene where

you get to see the different factions, and especially the Blue ones and their bungee killing

was amazing. And throughout, the fighting was really well done, in a more realistic "crouching tiger" fashion.

To me, the movie was written to get on screen the ideas the director had, the colours, factions, interactions, monsters. I wouldn't be surprised if they want to make a second one, as it was a bit rushed, but at the same time I think they could have taken out 10-20 minutes of it. I thought that Damon, aside from switching between accents regularly, worked well with Oberyn providing the comedic effect, and usually well done too.

I'd nearly go see it again just for the visuals, and I saw it in 2D so I might give the 3D a go. I also would look forward to a sequel. Grand popcorn muncher. 8/10.

MilesMorales1

Was it supposed to be a parody, or taken 100% seriously? Cos as a serious film, it was a bit crap. As a silly parody kind of thing, it was at least enjoyable.