An action-fantasy epic with Matt Damon playing an itinerant mercenary who, with a travelling companion ends up on the Great Wall of China back in the day. The wall is bustling with defence activity organised, it quickly appears, to keep something pretty fearsome out. But what? And how can Damon, viewed with suspicion by the defending class, prove his worth? Needless the say the viewer soon discovers in a welter of CGI, most of which is pretty impressive. The idea is preposterous of course, and the story itself pretty trivial (although it apparently needed three scriptwriters to sustain it). Damon would probably not be the first choice for the hero neither although he does his best. Willem Dafoe plays a sneaky supporting character, in the main sub-plot looking to make off with gunpowder. Much of the film has the cultural style and manner of several other Asian military epics with brightly coloured-uniforms and the geometric arrangement of men and equipment. But with all this it is rarely boring, while those who remember the swarm attack in the original Starship Trooper say, or even the end of Samurai Jack's pilot trilogy come to that, will find themselves at home here. Not top tier then, but worth a rent.
Review of The Great Wall
