They eat like crazy, only to vomit their stomach contents into the mouth of their queen. As for the space lizards, they are a xeno-biological wonder. Despite realising 900 years earlier that magnets seem to hold off the aliens’ communication with their telepathic queen, they do not act on this intelligence until Matt Damon turns up with a pet rock. They have been fighting a desperate, cyclical war with space lizards for centuries, but do not seem to have ever considered taking the fight to the aliens’ nest in a glowing green mountain during any of the 59-year dormancy periods.
If the Westerners are ( in a common trope) soulless egomaniacs in need of spiritual counsel, the Chinese come across as earnest but incredibly stupid. As is common with Sino-Hollywood co-productions, the interaction between the male and female lead is entirely lacking in what Russell T Davies calls the common “heterosexuality” of mainstream drama – in fact, Damon has a longer and deeper bromance going on with his co-star Pascal. In a replay of the big-picture loyalties of Zhang’s Hero, commander Lin Mae (Jing Tian) scoffs at his willingness to fight under any flag, slowly winning him over to her idea of devotion to a higher cause. Matt Damon’s character arrives in China as a cocksure, self-regarding rogue, interested only in stealing a military secret, only to be dazzled by the suicidal resolve of the Nameless Order. I believe that is a trend that should be embraced by our industry.” “For the first time, a film deeply rooted in Chinese culture, with one of the largest Chinese casts ever assembled, is being made at tent-pole scale for a world audience. “In many ways, The Great Wall is the opposite of what is being suggested,” he said, leaping to the defence of a movie in which Irish Matt Damon fights lizards from space. As director Zhang Yimou commented at the time, easily-offended social justice warriors were basing their ire on viewing a single, misleading trailer. The film’s biggest splash in international media has been over the supposed scandal of casting Matt Damon as some kind of white saviour. And connoisseurs of Legendary Pictures will swiftly recognise a Big Dumb Monster Movie in the making. Aficionados of Edward Zwick will see one of his trademark sincere, conflicted protagonists, although Zwick, too, is hidden in the “Story by” ghetto.
Fans of Max Brooks’ World War Z will see remnants of his particular style, even though his work on the original idea is buried beneath a “Story by” credit.
Poke through the ampersands in the script credits, you’ll see signs of it having existed in three or four distinct iterations – with another big-name director once attached, and at least one script doctor. Zhang Yimou’s The Great Wall is a glorious mess of a film – a fascinating palimpsest of modern movie-making, and a Chinese box of decisions and countermands behind the scenes. William and Tovar are fortune-seekers hoping to return home with the secret of gunpowder, but turn out to be the first scouts to encounter the signs of a new invasion of taotie – alien lizards that have been attacking every 60 years for centuries. Amid the rainbow-coloured rocks of China’s arid north-west, Irish brawler William (Matt Damon) and Spanish tough-guy Tovar (Pedro Pascal) surrender to the Nameless Order, an elite battalion that guards the Great Wall. In the 11th century AD, the last survivors from a group of European mercenaries finally reach their destination – Imperial China. The best Irish-Matt-Damon-fighting-space-lizards movie you will ever see, says Jonathan Clements.
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