‘Great Wall’ cracks apart

As the new film The Great Wall opens, the narrator appeals to a fanciful legend behind the construction of earth’s largest man-made object: Thousands of years ago, the legend goes, heaven punished a greedy Chinese emperor by sending oversized reptilian creatures called the Tao Tei. (Picture scaly, green Wargs with a nasty overbite.) To keep the man-eating monsters out of the empire, successive rulers built up the massive brick-and-stone Great Wall until it stretched thousands of miles east-to-west near China’s northern boundary. (Democrats and Republicans would have cast politics aside to fund this border project.)

But even moviegoers who can accept a preposterous mash-up of Jurassic Park, Aliens, and Robin Hood will likely feel disappointed. Except for impressive visuals, The Great Wall falls flat, lacking the building blocks (plot, drama, humor, romance) of an entertaining fantasy thriller.

The story takes place over the course of a few days during the era—probably the 13th century—just before Europeans discover China has “black powder” (gunpowder). William (Matt Damon) and Tovar (Pedro Pascal), two transcontinental fortune hunters, are scouring China for the rumored black powder when—of all the poor timing—they arrive at the Great Wall from the south just as the Tao Tei are swarming along the wall’s north side.

General Shao (Hanyu Zhang), Commander Lin Mae (Tian Jing), and the rest of the Chinese military stationed atop the wall initially remain as wary of William and Tovar as of the toothy attackers. Tovar fixates on the windfall possible from stealing black powder and selling it back in Europe to the highest bidder. William, though, sees a chance to do something bigger than himself—to use his formidable bow-and-arrow skills to help the Chinese protect their homeland.

Pascal does his wry best to emulate Inigo Montoya, but the stony Damon doesn’t appear to be up to the challenge—comedic or dramatic.

“One chance: Kill the queen, or we all die,” a Chinese officer warns.

“I’ll need my bow,” William drones.

The film’s true heroes are its crew. The end credits stretch on for several minutes, listing the carpenters who assembled the colossal sets, the costumers who fabricated hundreds of sets of brightly hued armor, and the digital artists who animated the terrifying Tao Tei. Kudos also is in order for the near-absence of explicit language and complete dearth of sensuality: For better or worse, William and Lin don’t even steal a single romantic glance.

The film (rated PG-13 for fantasy action violence) does show several hapless soldiers suffering snatch-and-gobble fates at the jaws of the Tao Tei, but reserves bloody gore solely for the beasts’ injuries.

The film shortchanges humor as it does character development, tension, and even action—with the camera spending much time reviewing troops standing in formation. If only the film were half as interesting as the Great Wall’s real history.