Film

“This! This is how we make mexico pay for it.”

Disaster movie

Something in the neighborhood of 17 bazillion zillion dollars got thrown at this movie thing called The Great Wall, a mash-up of American stars and a kick-ass Chinese director. That’s 17 bazillion zillion dollars somebody would’ve been better off spending on the world’s supply of masking tape and gummy bears.

Matt Damon stars in this mess, and this may very well represent the low point of his career, a career that has included the atrocious Jason Bourne and Hereafter.

He probably thought he was in safe hands because The Great Wall is helmed by director Zang Yimou, maker of such masterpieces as Hero, House of Flying Daggers and—one of my very favorite movies—The Road Home. Damon was probably all like, “Hey, Yimou is calling the shots. If anything, I’m going to look good in this pic!”

Then … he saw his wardrobe. A wardrobe that begins with big furry wigs and beards, and then declines into a sad man-bun wig as the film progresses. He looks silly from frame one.

He sounds silly, too. He’s attempting some sort of accent here, a cross between Irish, Scottish and just plain dickweed. Every time he talks in this movie, it hurts the ears and the soul—especially the souls of those who love Matt Damon.

Damon plays Legolas—I mean William—a mercenary, expert archer roaming China with his best mate, Tovar (Pedro Pascal) in search of the majestic “black powder” they hear can blow things up real good. One spooky night, the Green Arrow—sorry—William slays a mysterious beast. He chops off its arm and stows it, something that will save their lives when they come into contact with the Great Wall.

You see, the Great Wall wasn’t just built for American tourists so they could run around on it and take Facebook selfies. Nope, it was built

because the Chinese were trying to hold back attacks on their sovereignty by non-distinctive, shitty CGI creatures that look like a cross between a Gremlin and that ridiculous looking Ripley alien baby that showed up at the end of Alien Resurrection. Once the Chinese army discovers that Katniss—sorry—William was able to kill one of the legendary, totally unoriginal beasts on his own, they invite him in for food, lodging, and stultifying, inane dialogue. While inside, Robin Hood—oh, pardon me—William—starts to like them and feel at home. He even shows them how good he is with his arrows, aided by more unimpressive CGI. Willem Dafoe shows up as Ballard, the wildeyed guy wearing an Obi-Wan Kenobi robe who hides in the shadows all bug-eyed and knows all about the black powder. He’s been living on the other side of the wall, inexplicably, The Great Wall for years, looking for his chance to escape. (I never did figure out if he 12345 was a prisoner, willing resident or male prostitute.) When Rambo—I apologize—William shows up, Director: Zang Yimou Ballard figures this is his chance to Starring: Matt Damon, Pedro escape. As it turns out, his escape Pascal, Willem Dafoe plan would’ve worked just fine on his own and didn’t necessarily require somebody else, one of the film’s many plot holes. The wall itself is the product of more terrible, godawful CGI. You would think with this budget, they could’ve made this movie look better. There’s one moment when Daryl Dixon—I beg your pardon—William is swinging with a girl in his arms, and it’s so terribly obvious Damon’s face has been computer-glued onto a stuntman’s body. There wasn’t a single moment in this movie where the effects were impressive. I don’t think Damon will be returning as Hawkeye—Jesus Christ!—William in any sequels. The Great Wall is a great disaster of epic proportions, and an unfortunate English language debut for the great Yimou. Damon should stick with movies about being lost in space and solving gargantuan math problems. No … more … wig … movies. Ω

3The Founder Michael Keaton is flat-out great as Ray Kroc, the sorta-kinda founder of McDonald’s. Director John Lee Hancock’s film tells the story from when Kroc was selling milk shake mixers door-to-door up through his wife-stealing days as the head of the McDonald’s corporation. Hancock’s movie desperately wants you to like Kroc, but maybe we shouldn’t? After all, he swept in and took the name of McDonald’s from the McDonald brothers (Nick Offerman and John Carroll Lynch), effectively cutting them out of most profits and leaving them in his dust. It’s a beautiful looking movie that captures the essence of those old timey fast food joints that replaced the traditional drive-in diners. It slows down a bit and gets a little muddled when it tries to depict Kroc as some sort of commerce hero.

4Hidden Figures Katherine Johnson was part of a segregated division at NASA in the ’50s, a wing of mathematicians who did the work that computers do today. HiddenFiguresdepicts the humiliation she and two other historical African-American figures, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson, went through while solving equations that helped put men safely into space. The women had to put up with a lot of racist bullshit, and the film shows their hardships, albeit in PG fashion. Taraji P. Henson plays Johnson, the “smart one” astronaut John Glenn personally demanded check the coordinates before his historical flight launched. Octavia Spencer is her usual great self as Vaughan, doing the work of a supervisor without the title and curious about that new IBM thing they just installed down the hall. Vaughan would become crucial to the implementation of computers at NASA, as well as being the agency’s first African-American supervisor. As Jackson, NASA’s first female African-American aeronautical engineer, singer Janelle Monae is so good, it’s easy to forget that this is just her second movie role. As a composite, fictional character named Al Harrison, Kevin Costner does some of his best acting in years.

4John Wick: Chapter 2 A whole lot of people get shot in the face during this worthy sequel to the 2015 breakout hit. Keanu Reeves—totally bummedout Keanu Reeves—returns as the lone assassin, originally brought out of retirement after somebody killed his dog and stole his car. Many deaths later, Wick is back in his stylish home, with a new no-named dog, intent upon burying his guns and taking a long break. No such luck. A man from the past shows up with a marker, giving him a killing assignment that will take him to Italy and have him facing off with the likes of Common. (It turns out Common is built like The Terminator and makes for a good villain. Oh, wait … he’s sort of the good guy. Wick is actually a villain.) Balletic violence begins and never ends. This time out, Wick is wearing some sort of bulletproof lining under his suit. He was unstoppable before, but now he can take a bullet! Reeves is the perfect guy for this role, physically believable as an aging, unstoppable assassin, and pretty great with the stoic line deliveries. He’s in one mode for this movie, and that mode is badass. Reeves has himself a brand new franchise, and this one is very ripe for the next story. It also has another Reeves franchise guy, Laurence Fishburne a.k.a. Morpheus from TheMatrix.

5La La Land This is an all new, original musical from director Damien Chazelle (Whiplash) that’s surprisingly low on melodrama while full of vibrancy, beautiful tunes, outstanding set pieces and a stunning sense of realism for a movie where the characters bust out singing. It’s the best original movie musical ever made. The story follows wannabe actress Mia (Emma Stone) and jazz composer Sebastian (Ryan Gosling) as they try to make it in crazy Los Angeles. They meet, they don’t like each other much at first, but then they fall in love, which provides Chazelle and his performers ample opportunities for musical numbers that surprise at every turn. This solidifies Gosling as one of the best actors of his generation. He can wow you with insightful indies and carry big-budget blockbusters. Now, with LaLaLand, he takes his game to a new level. He can sing and dance with the best of them. Stone doesn’t just make her mark with a beautiful voice and expert footwork—she embodies the character with the honest and almost tragic drive to “make it” in the business.

4The Lego Batman Movie This is the great Batman story that BatmanvSupermanfailed to be. Even better, it has Will Arnett voicing Batman with a new, super amped, still dark, but amazingly well rounded and sometimes humorous incarnation. After all these years of dark—and admittedly sometimes brilliant—Batman movies, it’s nice to have a vehicle where we can just have fun with the character. Director Chris McKay, along with a long list of writers, has come up with a story that will please adult Batman fans as much as the kids who will most assuredly be dropped off at the local Cineplex to watch a movie while parents catch a break from the little mayhem makers. Arnett’s Batman not only faces off against the Joker (a very funny Zach Galifianakis), but finds himself in a scenario where he’s battling a smorgasbord of movie villains including King Kong, the Gremlins, Dracula, evil British robots and Voldemort (Eddie Izzard), to name just a few. It’s a nutty plot element that also allows for Batman mainstays like Bane, Two-Face (Billy Dee Williams, who was Harvey Dent in Tim Burton’s Batman) and the Riddler (Conan O’Brien!) to get in on the act. It’s a geek fest, a movie lover’s delight that has a funny little trivia bit at nearly every turn, and an emotional center.

4Split Writer-director M. Night Shyamalan has finally made his first good movie since Signs(2002) with Split, a down-to-thebasics, creepy thriller propelled by excellent performances from James McAvoy and Anya Taylor-Joy (TheWitch). The film reminds us that Shyamalan can be a capable director and writer when he’s not getting too carried away. Taylor-Joy plays Casey, a high school outcast who attends a birthday party but soon finds herself and two classmates imprisoned by a strange man with multiple personalities (McAvoy). In addition to the angry man who kidnaps them, he’s also a stately, mannered woman, a 9-year-old child and, well, a few others. One of those other personalities plays a big part in taking the film into other realms beyond psychological thriller. McAvoy goes nuts with the role, and Shyamalan takes things into supernatural territories in a chilling climax. Taylor-Joy is quickly becoming the new scream queen, and McAvoy’s work will surely stand as one of the year’s most fun performances.

3XX Four women direct short films in this horror anthology. Most notably, Annie Clark of the band St. Vincent—my hero!—makes her film directorial debut with a segment called “The Birthday Party,” where a frantic mom (Melanie Lynskey) panics when she finds a corpse just before her child’s birthday. The segment looks great, is acted well, and features some great sound and St. Vincent music. As a piece of horror, it’s a bit of a failure—it’s more jokey than horror—but the segment does show that Clark can direct performances and pull together the technical parts. It’s just not scary. Things get creepier in an EvilDeadsort of way with “Don’t Fall,” where some desert campers come into contact with demonic forces after seeing some sketches on a stone wall. There isn’t much of a story to the segment, but the scares come fast and furious once somebody gets possessed. The other segments, “The Gift” and “Her Only Living Son,” deal with starvation, parenthood and the antichrist, and they also have their moments. Nothing in this anthology is groundbreaking, but there’s enough here to warrant watching if you are a horror fan or a St. Vincent fan. Available for download rental during limited theatrical release.