FILM REVIEW OF "THE GREAT WALL"

Creature features like Chinese director Zhang Yimou's sprawling $150 million fantasy epic "The Great Wall" (* OUT OF ****) must bristle with monsters that not only send a chill down your spine but also paralyze you with fear. Sadly, neither Yimou, who helmed "House of Flying Daggers," nor his lackluster special effects team have conjured up monsters that would frighten a cat. The toothy but mange-ridden reptilian quadruples that swarm over, around, and under the eponymous wall resemble a horde of demented Tasmanian devils. Mind you, these predators hunt like ravenous wolves, but they look far more hilarious than intimidating. When a multi-million-dollar movie sinks a fortune on such an egregious example of monsters, you'd think the producers would have shown greater imagination. Why actors as respected as Matt Damon and Willem Dafoe would grace this expensive, but lame-brained, hybrid Hollywood/Chinese co-production with their presence remains baffling, too. "The Great Wall" evoked memories of the abysmal Keanu Reeves escapade "47 Ronin" (2013) because both movies depicted how a European outsider intervened to save Asians from virtual annihilation. Mind you, "Sorcerer's Apprentice" scribes Carlo Bernard and Doug Miro along with "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story" scribe Tony Gilroy have concocted a premise about Medieval European mercenaries--Matt Damon, Pedro Pascal, and Willem Dafoe— drifting around China on a quest for the fabled gunpowder. Naturally, the Chinese refuse to share the secret of gunpowder with these barbarians since it constituted the equivalent of a nuclear bomb in the bow & arrow era. Eventually, our outcast heroes find refuge within the ranks of an army of intrepid Chinese warriors after Damon's mercenary protagonist miraculously manages to slay one of these absurd beasts. Worse than its Rat Fink-style monsters, "The Great Wall" generates minimal suspense and few surprises with its preposterously formulaic plot. Once you lay your eyes on these bogus Tao Tei monsters you may clamor for a refund on your ticket.

William (Matt Damon of "The Bourne Identity") and Tovar (Pedro Pascal of "Hermanas") have spent their entire lives on the battlefield and dispatched adversaries with as little regard for them as we might stomp cockroaches. Having embarked on an ambitious journey to the Far East, our heroes set out to acquire the legendary black powder that will escalate combat to a more devastating intensity. Unfortunately, attrition in form of marauding enemies as well as enigmatic creatures has whittled their numbers down until only William and Tovar remain. At one point, three of their comrades vanish under suspicious circumstances, and William slashes a big, green claw off something that he cannot see. Our heroic duo doesn't last long in the sprawling Gobi Desert before Chinese soldiers of the Nameless Order surround and usher them off to their leaders. General Shao (Hanyu Zhang of "White Vengeance") and his second-in-command Lin Mae (Ting Jing of "Police Story: Lockdown") have assembled a massive army atop a gargantuan wall where they maintain surveillance on the surrounding countryside. They interrogate William and Tovar and are prepared to execute them as intruders until they discover the severed claw of a Tao Tei monster among William's belongings. They change their attitude about these two and let them live. As it turns out, another European, Ballard (Willem Dafoe of "John Wick"), who has been a Chinese prisoner for about 25 years, blundered unbidden into their land in search of black powder, too. They didn't kill him, and during that time, Ballard has taught Lin Mae how to speak English.

No sooner have the Chinese captured our heroes than William and Tovar collaborate secretly with Ballard about an escape plan. Initially, something stands in their way. A scourge of hideous reptiles endowed with surprising intelligence has been plaguing China. These fiendish creatures show up every 60 years with regularity, and a queen supervises their activities by means of sound vibrations. As Strategist Wang (Andy Lau of "Infernal Affairs") explains it, these carnivores have been terrorizing China for 22 centuries because one emperor wallowed in greed so wanton that a meteor crashed into a mountain and unleashed this pestilence. Consequently, the Chinese constructed the 'Great Wall' to contend with this blight, but they have achieved only minimal success, despite having an arsenal gun powder that they deploy in explosives of various dimensions. Furthermore, these beasts, with eyes located in their shoulders and heads bristling with a porcupine of deadly teeth, have learned over the years how to adapt to the strategies that the Chinese have devised to kill them. William finds himself at a turning point during this predicament. He discovers that fighting for wealth no longer motivates him as an individual. Instead, he learns from the noble Numberless Order that trust supersedes money. Meantime, all Tovar wants is to escape with Ballard; Ballard has been plotting his escape, and he has a route and parcels of the explosive black powder to take back to Europe. During a confrontation on the wall with these monsters, General Shao is mortally wounded by a Tao Tei, and he passes command of the army to Lin Mae. Lin Mae finds herself in an even worse situation than General Shao because the Tao Tei have figured out that it is the cities rather than the great wall where they should concentrate their energy. The Tao Tei stop attacking the wall and swarm off to the capital like an inexorable horde to eat the emperor. The evil Tao Tei queen with her tiara and her inner circle of lizard bodyguards that sprout shields to protect her is truly hilarious. Lin Mae and a few select soldiers pilot ancient balloons to fly to the capital to save the Emperor. William decides to risk his life on this perilous expedition while Tovar and Ballard escape with quantities of gun powder. Despite being the most expensive Chinese movie ever produced with a distinguished cast of Asian actors, "The Great Wall" resembles something that the goofy SyFy Channel would have cooked up to top its sophomoric "Sharknado" sagas.

FILM REVIEW OF "THE EXPENDABLES 2" (2012)

Watching the old-fashioned, larger-than-life, male-bonding epic “The Expendables 2” (**** OUT OF ****) is like enjoying a nostalgic jaunt down memory lane. A gallery of brawny 1980s era, action-hero icons assembles for this testosterone-laden tale that depicts combat on land, sea, and in the air with double-digit body counts. At one point, Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Bruce Willis stand shoulder-to-shoulder, armed with automatic weapons, firing fusillades of bullets into wave after wave of pugnacious bad guys.  Joining Stallone, Schwarzenegger, and Willis this time out are two more 1980s era action heroes: Chuck Norris and Jean-Claude Van Damme. Along with these legendary leading men, newcomers Liam Hemsworth, Scott Adkins, and Nan Yu dodge bullets, too. Jason Statham, Jet Li, Randy Couture, Terry Crews, and Dolph Lundgren reprise their roles as Barney Ross’s tough-as-nails mercenaries. Just as sentimental as the original “Expendables,” “Expendables 2” conjures up ten times more carnage and demolition in its remote Bosnian settings.  Unlike the original, this ambitious sequel gives Schwarzenegger and Willis far more screen time to flesh out their identities.  While the dialogue amounts to amusing one-liners served up over twenty years ago in the advertising campaigns of “The Terminator” and “Die Hard,” the formulaic screenplay penned by Stallone and “16 Blocks” scribe Richard Wenk qualifies as a standard-issue revenge thriller. Essentially, you should prepare yourself for lots of eardrum numbing battle sequences interspersed with soul-searching dialogue scenes among the principals when they aren’t exposing themselves in the line of fire.  Nothing has really changed aside from a fresh, new setting in Albania that appears scenic in its own grungy way. 

“The Expendables 2” erupts with a series of slam-bang action scenes that resemble something “The A-Team” use to pull off every week during its five-year run on NBC.  Barney Ross and his pals show up in a squalid-looking town in Nepal on a ‘do or die’ mission to rescue a Chinese billionaire from some nasty extortionists. They careen into the city in military vehicles designed to smash through barriers of every description. These aggressive-looking trucks have clever names stenciled on them, such as ‘knock-knock’ and ‘bad attitude.’ Mind you, it doesn’t matter that our heroes are hopelessly outnumbered because they devastate the opposition mercilessly with artillery blasts and bursts from .50 caliber machine guns. At one point, Barney (Sylvester Stallone of 1981’s “Nighthawks”) cranks up a motorcycle and wields it like a weapon to bring down a helicopter.  Our heroes evacuate in motor-driven boats but find themselves pursued by trigger-happy soldiers in ‘Everglades’ air-boats armed with mortars. Momentarily detained in the jungle, Barney and Lee Christmas (Jason Statham of 1998’s ‘Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels”) recover their seaplane and sweep down out of the sky like the cavalry as the villains are drawing a bead on their comrades.  There is even a revelation or two in all this bullet-riddled mayhem that takes Barney by surprise before they make their getaway.

After a round of beers back home, Barney runs into the dubiously named Mr. Church (Bruce Willis of 1988’s “Die Hard”) who has been waiting for him at the latter’s aircraft hangar.  Church dispatches Barney Ross and his cronies on ‘a walk in the park’ mission to crack a safe in a crashed jetliner. Church surprises Barney when he sends one of his own agents. She can open the mysterious safe without atomizing everybody.  Initially, Barney objects to bringing a woman along on the mission. As it turns out, Maggie Chan (NanYu of “Diamond Dogs”) allays Barney’s anxieties that she won’t be able to fend for herself. Maggie looks extremely lethal in combat against multiple male opponents. Our heroes have no problem locating the wreckage of the jet and a few tense moments ensue after they find the safe. Unfortunately, everything goes awry afterward, when an army of sadistic villains intervenes, demands the contents from the safe, and threatens to execute one of Barney’s unit if they don’t lay down their arms and hand over what they found in the plane crash. Motivated as much by the loss of one from their own ranks, Barney and company set out in furious pursuit of the villains.  An Eastern European crime cartel led by an appropriately named thug Jean Vilain (Jean Claude Van Damme of 1988’s “No Retreat, No Surrender “) has no qualms about killing. The information liberated from the safe contains the whereabouts of five-tons of plutonium abandoned by the Russians in a derelict mine during the Cold War. Vilain and his menacing minions have recruited slave labor from the location population at gunpoint to help them excavate the plutonium.

British director Simon West, who helmed “Con-Air,” “Laura Croft, Tomb Raider,” and “The Mechanic,” rarely allows the pace to slow down in this noisy extravaganza, especially when the heroes and villains are blasting away at each other with murderous glee. West and “xXx: State of the Union” editor Todd E. Miller never unnecessarily linger on a single image.  Some of the editing seems almost subliminal.  Clocking in at a nimble 102 minutes, “The Expendables 2” offers double the action with double the stars. “Lone Wolf McQuade” star Chuck Norris finds himself in the fray and shows that he still possesses the stamina. It is difficult to believe that all these guys, who once battled it out among themselves for box office supremacy, have come together to make such an outlandish but entertaining opus. For the record, Dolph Lundgren’s character, Gunnar, has cleaned up his act from the original and is back with Barney and company. Gunnar still picks on agile, pint-sized Jet Li while Barney and Lee bicker with each other about anything and everything. If you saw “The Expendables,” you know that Lee Christmas had fallen in love with a gal who let her sadistic boyfriend beat up on her.  Lee and Lacy (Charisma Carpentar of TV’s “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”) are now a couple. Conspicuously absent from the cast is Mickey Rourke who played the philosophical Tool in the original.  If you loved the original “Expendables,” you’ll love “The Expendables 2.” Rumors are flying that the producers are already casting a third installment in the franchise.