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Film Review: The Great Wall

09:31 February 21, 2017
By: Fritz Esker

** stars (out of four)

Mercenaries (played by Matt Damon and Pedro Pascal) searching for gunpowder in ancient China find themselves fighting monsters behind the Great Wall of China in the new action film The Great Wall, directed by Zhang Yimou.

There’s really not much more to the story than that. Damon, speaking with what sounds like a dubious Scottish accent, has a love/hate relationship with a beautiful general (Tian Jing) and argues with Pascal about whether or not they should help the Chinese battle the monsters or steal the gunpowder and leave.

The movie has a few moments of fleeting imagination and there’s some occasionally amusing banter between Damon and Pascal. But for the most part, it’s an endless parade of CGI monsters either eating people or taking arrows to the eyes. It’s mostly dull mayhem.

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