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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