Super mercenary William (Matt Damon) and his sidekick Tovar (Pedro Pascal) are looking to steal black powder from the mysterious Orient, ending up instead in the custody of the Order, a group of colorfully-armored warriors that man the Great Wall, defending against an endless number of semi-intelligent monsters. Commander Lin (Tian Jing) wants to kill the Westerners to keep their monster-fighting secret, but Strategist Wang (Andy Lau) thinks their history of killing a monster and Williamâs freakish skill with a bow make them an asset. While fighting the hordes of creatures, William and Tovar team up with Ballard (Willem Dafoe), another black powder-seeking mercenary, to plan an escape.
The costumes are spectacularâabsolutely beautiful. Rows and rows of blue and red Technicolor armor and flowing robes. Without even knowing the competition I can say The Great Wall should win the Academy Award for costume design. And add to that the Oscar for art design. The Great Wall (the physical wall in the movie, not the movie itself) is magnificent. Every room, every hall, every walkway is a beautiful fantasy. Armored, female, acrobat warriors leaping from elaborate scaffoldings while defended by thousands of scarlet archers is a thing to cherish. That is cinematic artistry and director Yimou Zhang (Hero, House of Flying Daggers) throws his heart into each gorgeous group shot. Well, his heart had to be somewhere; it wasnât with the story.
Yes, this is a sumptuous film, but it’s all background beauty. The monsters are reasonable CGI creations and the idea of a siege by supernatural forces on The Great Wall with secret warriors on the defense is fine. The whole White savior thing is not.
OK, The Great Wall gets a pass on racism due to it being a Chinese production⌠Well, not really. This is an American production from Legendary Entertainment, with a Chinese company signing on to co-produce. It does have a Chinese director (second choice after a White guy turned it down) but the writersâ6 of them? Really?–and producers are all Hollywood folks. But for simplicityâs sake, Iâll give it a pass on racism because the same choice pulled this film down artistically. The problem with having a White savior isnât just a social issue, itâs that it is boring. Really, really boring. The savior is, by nature, disconnected with his surroundings. He could be used as a portal character is some instances but that is unnecessary here. The story should be about Commander Lin, Wang, and an inexperienced soldier just finding his courage as they defend against forces that could crush their civilization. But we donât get that story. We donât get to know two of those three and Lin ends up dwelling not on how she feels about what is happening but how she feels about some dude who happened to show up. Thereâs no time to tell us what the monsters are or make us feel what is truly at stake. Instead we spend time with William.
William knows nothing about China. He doesnât know the monsters. He doesnât know what they are so we never learn. He doesnât have any connection to the civilization under attack, so we have no connection (except it is very pretty). We follow the outsider and his story, and as is often the case with White saviors, he doesnât have much of a story. Heâs the cold mercenary who turns caring when he sees something to believe in, or so we are told. We are told how cruel he was, not shown it and his heroics are just what he does so we don’t witness any deep character development nor are we made to feel anything. Williamâs just a generic White savior doing what White saviors have done so many times before for no real reason and with only cursorily explanation for his abilities: Heâs better at doing the things the Chinese having been doing for years just because he is. The whole âescape with the black powderâ subplot is a snooze.
It is telling that William, Tovar, and Ballard could be plucked out of the film without harming it. It simply isnât their story. Get rid of them and give me an extra half hour of Lin and Wang and the young soldier and we could have a great fantasy film.
So, if you donât want to blame racism, then go with callow Hollywood commercialism. The producers figured a White Matt Damon would sell tickets where an all Chinese cast would not, so he got shoehorned into a movie where he doesnât belong.
That doesnât make this a terrible film, just a missed opportunity. The action is exciting and everything looks so good that the movie is watchable. And Damon is amiable enough. It just should have been so much more.