Matt Damon as a soldier in ancient China in a scene in "The Great Wall." (Photo : Twitter)
In terms of box-office results, Matt Damon’s “The Great Wall” did quite well, earning $18.1 million after it opened on Friday in the U.S. However, critics were not impressed with the film which got an approval rating of only 36 percent based on 143 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes.
The movie ranked third at the weekend box office chart, behind “The LEGO Batman Movie” and “Fifty Shades Darker” which were already on their second week. For the four-day President’s Day weekend, “The Great Wall” is expected to earn $21 million.
Bad Reviews
While “The Great Wall” is expected to match the first week $18 million income of “Hero,” the 2004 blockbuster of the same Chinese director, Zhang Yimou, his latest film got bad reviews. Critics say they found “The Great Wall” not exciting or entertaining contrary to their expectations of a movie starring Matt Damon and Willem Dafoe whom they find ridiculous fighting ancient monsters, China.org reported.
Josh Bell, a Las Vegas Weekly critic, pointed out that the director, in attempting to provide “an equally inoffensive balance for both the Chinese and American markets” ended up with the worst of both worlds. Zhang, who previously said that if a movie fails, the mission to export culture also fails, tried to use “The Great Wall” to exprt Chinese culture and serve as a new model of co-production between U.S. and Chinese entertainment companies.
Cheap Storyline
Going beyond the previous whitewashing accusation against the movie, Next Shark pointed out that the movie is guiltier of “sloppy and token display of Chinese cultural references.” It added that Chinese audience focused their criticism on the film’s cheap storyline rather than the whitewashing controversy.
Despite the bad reviews, “The Great Wall” is the highest-grossing movie in the career of Zhang Yimou, his first English-language film that has grossed so far $262 million in its global exhibition, 65 percent of which, or $170 million, came from the film’s China exhibition. While it only was third in the U.S., in other markets such as France, Egypt, Belgium and Russia, the movie was No. 1 on its debut. “The Great Wall” would premiere in Latin America this coming weekend and in Japan on April 14.
