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Rating: 4/5
Review: "The Great Wall IMAX 3D movie review" (104 minutes)

"The Great Wall has generic plot and characters but the strong technical aspects, Zhang's visuals and immersive 3D, make it slightly more than a mindless fantasy entertainment."

The Great Wall is a big budget fantasy film directed by Zhang Yimou, famed for Hero and House of Flying Daggers. Although the trailers promised plenty of spectacle, people find it controversial and even claim that it is like an asian film being whitewashed. It led to negative reviews when the film was first released in China. Many say that while it strikes as a visually appealing film, the story is horrendous. Since then, despite the huge box office opening, the earnings so far has been a disappointment. So amidst all these negativity, is there really no value in this?

The story: Director Zhang Yimou may struggle in telling a coherent story but it is undeniable that he knows how to cook up strong visuals. Running less than 2 hours, he struggles to develop the characters and story fully. The characters are set as safe generic characters. They are there to spring into action whenever needed. There is not much of a story. Given the short run time, it is rushed and things just fall into place with film convenience. It is a straight forward fast paced action fantasy that may only be interested in launching striking visuals into the eyes of a viewer. After watching this, I disagree with the whitewashing controversy. Although Matt Damon and Pedro Pascal hold the film, the asian cast have their fair share of screen time, action and intelligence. The foreign actors are not gloried. Jing Tian is commendable as the strong asian female lead who is able to stand out in the male-dominated film. Director Zhang is smart enough to balance them. The 3 major action scenes are staged well with lots of spectacle. They are integrated well with CGI. Acting wise is alright. Most of the cast play a stereotyped character so there is not much for them to play around. Music by Ramin Djawadi is suitably epic.

IMAX 3D: It elevates the generic film to another level. The usage of 3D is well used and immersed me into the fantasy world. Without the additional dimension, I would have given this a lower score. The sense of scope and depth is translated well in IMAX. The 3D enhances the already strong Zhang's visual direction.

Overall: Zhang's vision may not be appreciated by many critics but they cannot deny that he has one of the best visual eyes in the film industry. The Great Wall has a generic fantasy action plot but what make it entertaining are the strong visuals and immersive 3D. On the whole, because of the strong technical aspects, I was entertained throughout. This is one of the few films that I feel that may benefit with a longer director cut.

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