“The Great Wall” is a movie that spends $150 million on spectacle and almost nothing on sense. It stars Matt Damon as William Campbell, a mercenary who stumbles upon the wall of the title while chasing a stolen treasure map. What he finds is not gold but a horde of alien monsters, and the Chinese soldiers who guard the wall are the only thing standing between the creatures and the world beyond.
That setup sounds like a pitch for a great action movie. In practice, it delivers a mess.
Trailer, via Universal Pictures UK.
The Wall and Its Monsters
The titular wall is a vast stone fortification built to keep out the “Taotie,” a species of giant, snake-headed beasts that attack in swarms. The film presents this as a historical fact, a war fought centuries ago. That premise is the film’s core idea, and it is also the film’s biggest problem.
Director Yimou Zhang (“Hero,” “House of Flying Daggers”) treats the wall as a military marvel. Soldiers ride siege engines, fire flaming arrows, and chain together to form human shields. The visuals are grand. They are also hollow. The wall exists as a set piece, not as a narrative engine. It does not drive the plot forward. It does not deepen the characters. It simply fills the frame with motion.
The Taotie themselves are the film’s most striking element. They are enormous, grotesque, and covered in armor-like plates. Their attacks involve spitting acid and launching projectiles. They are genuinely terrifying in isolated shots. In extended sequences, they become a blur of indistinguishable movement.
Matt Damon’s Campbell
Damon plays William Campbell as a man of few words and even fewer ideas. He is a hired sword who stumbles into the wall and gets pressed into service. His character arc is minimal. He learns to fight alongside the Chinese soldiers, and he eventually helps defeat the Taotie. That is the extent of his journey.
The film leans on Campbell as a Westerner to explain the wall to the audience. He asks questions about why the wall exists and what the Taotie want. These questions are never answered satisfactorily. The film offers a vague legend about a curse and a prophecy, but it never commits to a coherent explanation. The wall is a mystery that the film refuses to solve.
Damon’s performance is competent. He carries himself with the physicality that made him famous in “Bourne.” But there is little beneath the surface. He does not get to explore his motivations. He does not get to develop a relationship with anyone. He is a tool for exposition and a pawn in the final battle.
The Chinese Cast
The supporting cast is led by Jing Tian as Lin, a soldier who trains Campbell in the wall’s tactics. She is capable and fierce, but her character is underwritten. She speaks in platitudes about honor and duty. She does not get to be funny or vulnerable or human. She is a function of the plot.
Wang Tiezhu plays General Shiyi, the commander of the wall. He is stern and wise, but his wisdom is never tested. He tells Campbell about the wall’s history and then steps aside. The film trusts him to represent the Chinese perspective, but it never lets him do anything with that trust.
The rest of the cast fills out the ranks. There is a young boy named Huo who is curious about the wall. There is a veteran fighter named Fang who is cynical about the whole operation. None of them get enough screen time to matter.
The Battle Sequences
The action in “The Great Wall” is ambitious. The film stages massive battles with thousands of extras, dozens of siege engines, and waves of Taotie. The choreography is elaborate. The camera moves fast. The effects are polished.
But the fights are disorienting. The film cuts between Campbell, Lin, and Shiyi, and it is often unclear who is winning or what the stakes are. The Taotie swarm in a way that makes individual combat impossible to follow. The result is a sequence that looks impressive but feels empty.
The final battle is the climax. It involves a massive assault by the Taotie, a desperate charge by the Chinese forces, and a last stand atop the wall. It is loud and colorful. It is also the longest stretch of the film that feels like it is going nowhere.
The Problem With the Premise
The central problem with “The Great Wall” is that its premise is unexamined. The wall is presented as a historical fact, but the film never explains why the Taotie exist or why they attack. It is suggested that they are drawn to human settlements for some unknown purpose, but the film never explores that purpose.
There are several possible explanations that the film could have used:
- The Taotie are a natural predator that humans have learned to defend against.
- The Taotie are intelligent beings who resent human expansion.
- The Taotie are controlled by a supernatural force.
- The Taotie are a metaphor for invasion or plague.
None of these are pursued. The film settles for a legend about a curse and a prophecy, which is less satisfying than any of those options.
The film also struggles with its setting. The wall is supposed to be ancient China, but the costumes and architecture are generic. The soldiers wear armor that looks more like fantasy than history. The sets are vast but sterile. The film is not interested in the culture it is depicting.
A Hollow Spectacle
“The Great Wall” is a film that knows how to build a set and a film that knows how to waste one. It is full of action and empty of meaning. It is loud and colorful and ultimately forgettable.
The film’s failure is not technical. The visual effects are competent. The action sequences are ambitious. The performances are solid. The failure is conceptual. The film does not know what it wants to say about its own premise, and it does not know how to make its characters care.
Matt Damon is a good actor, but he is wasted here. Jing Tian and the rest of the cast are competent, but they are wasted too. The wall itself is a marvel of design, but it is wasted as a narrative device.
The film is not a disaster. It is not a masterpiece. It is a movie that spends $150 million on a spectacle that does not earn its cost.
“The Great Wall” is a hollow, ambitious, and ultimately unsatisfying film. It is a movie that understands the difference between spectacle and storytelling and chooses the former. It is a movie that deserves to be seen once and forgotten immediately.
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