Cinemazlowski Double Review: “The Great Wall” and "Get Out"

Feb 24, 2017

It's been a pretty dire year for movies so far, with the few bright spots coming from the leftover Oscar contenders from last year that opened in most of the country during January, and otherwise mostly hopeless junk as far as this year's new releases. But along with last weekend's awesomely silly sci fi action flick "The Great Wall," this week features another bright spot in the unexpectedly entertaining thriller "Get Out." 

Sometimes a movie is just meant to be big, dumb fun, with wild special effects, some funny lines and non-stop action combining to overcome plot holes and all logical sense. The new movie "The Great Wall" – about a Western mercenary in medieval-era China who is captured by the Chinese for trying to smuggle gunpowder out of the country, but then helps lead a successful battle against rampaging hordes of green alien beasts attacking the Great Wall – is one of those movies, but has one truly boggling twist: it stars Matt Damon, who usually steers clear of wacky movies in favor of more cerebral or politically charged entertainment.
 
The movie starts by showing a small band of rugged, heavily bearded mercenaries led by William (Damon) who are in medieval-era China trying to steal and smuggle out the recent invention of gunpowder. They are hiding in a cave from Chinese forces seeking to punish them when they are attacked abruptly by a shadowy alien creature, and William saves them all by cutting the creature's arm off, sending it hurtling off a cliff.
 
The next day, William and one other mercenary ride away to further evade their pursuers, only to run into the Great Wall of China and find themselves stopped by a hailstorm of arrows shot from its top by an army of archers. Captured, they are in danger of being put to death by female Commander Lin (Tian Jing), when suddenly thousands of rampaging alien monsters attack, with the Chinese fighting them off with flaming cannonballs, arrows, swords, spears and acrobatic diving female soldiers in an impressive battle sequence.
 
William is cut loose of his prisoner bindings by another Westerner named Ballard (Willem Dafoe), who has been living at the Wall as a prisoner for 25 years for trying to smuggle gunpowder himself. William springs into action, saving numerous soldiers from attack and showing them how to defeat the beasts: by spearing or shooting arrows into their mouths and thus striking their hearts.
 
William and his main partner are suddenly heroes, and the rest of the movie consists of impressive battle sequences and fun banter as the two Westerners and Ballard have to learn to adapt to the Chinese culture of team thinking and away from their selfish natures in order to survive and win the battle.
 
"The Great Wall" is ridiculous fun, mixing medieval battle movies, Chinese culture and sci-fi together into a non-stop action-packed romp. It's nice to see Damon take such a major step in a fun direction, away from his usually serious-minded movies, and the culture clash friendship that forms between William and Commander Lin teeters on the edge of romance without ever crossing from friendship.
 
It's refreshing to see a woman given full respect in a movie, and not treated as a mere love interest or sex object, but this direction in the storyline also reflects Chinese culture's hesitance to show kissing or any romantic or sexual content in most of their movies.
 
The dialogue is wooden and direct early on, with an overt expository quality that makes the movie seem like it's going to be worthy of mockery before the first big battle makes it impossible to take seriously. From there, the script loosens up a lot, with frequent funny asides and banter, and a self-aware sense of humor about how ludicrous this all is.
 
While the monsters are vicious, the writers and director have managed to keep everything pitched at a level that teens can easily enjoy without any moral qualms or fear of being traumatized, and probably even kids ages 10 and up, particularly boys, can enjoy it. Its general spirit is in the realm of movies like "Raiders of the Lost Ark."
 
The movie also shows the value of turning away from selfishness and of the admirable quality of sacrificing oneself to save others. Overall, "The Great Wall" is a great time at the movies for those at least 10 to 12 years of age.

"Get Out" follows the story of Chris (Daniel Kaluuya), an African-American photographer in his late 20s who has a budding serious relationship with a white woman named Rose (Alison Williams). She invites him to visit her parents in a rural area, and he asks her if they know he's black. She says no, but not to worry about it.

However, when he meets her hypnotist mother Missy (Catherine Keener) and surgeon father Dean (Bradley Whitford), their initial kind interaction seems to mask a latent creepiness that Chris slowly realizes is extreme racism. Dean explains that his father had been hoping to be an Olympic runner, but lost his place on the 1936 Olympics team to Jesse Owens, the legendary African-American runner who shocked Adolf Hitler by winning four Gold medals at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin – and that his father never got over losing his spot.

As Chris settles in for dinner, the creepiness builds, and when he goes out for a walk, he finds that the black maid and black handyman are exhibiting extremely strange, robotic behavior. When Chris re-enters the house, Missy is waiting for him, discussing Chris' smoking habit with disdain and offering to cure him of it through hypnosis. He refuses but before he knows it, she's hypnotized him and when he awakens, he notices that certain strange words and actions trigger him into odd behavior – though he mostly keeps his wits and skepticism intact.

From there, things get stranger, as numerous rich white people arrive at the house in limos and act a little too friendly to Chris, while making slightly racist comments. His best friend Rod (LilRel Howery), a TSA agent, suspects that Chris is in danger, and other signs quickly make him realize he has to run for his life.

"Get Out" is written and directed by the highly acclaimed black comic Jordan Peele, who was one half of the comedy duo Key and Peele that had a successful Comedy Central series named after them. This movie marks a truly impressive filmmaking debut, as he makes a movie that fits strongly in the modern day Hitchockian thriller mold, rather than a comedy. However, a large part of why this movie works so well is its use of comedic banter from his best friend Rod commenting on the events throughout - a self-aware sense of humor that recalls the brilliance of the 1996 horror thriller "Scream." 

"Get Out" has a terrific use of sound and music throughout, and the performances are outstanding. Kaluuya in particular, as Chris the protagonist, delivers a star making performance, while the rich supporting cast delivers a slyly subtle sense of menace throughout.

While the movie on its surface seems to harbor a PC theme of blacks versus whites, and rich white Southerners taking advantage of blacks, the movie's satirical tone at key moments throughout keeps it from seeming to really be encouraging racial distrust and animosity. Peele also uses admirable restraint when the movie finally requires a violent climax, and leaves much of the worst action to the viewers' imagination and a minimum of blood.

Morally, the main problem stems from its bursts of foul language, with about 50 uses of variations of the F word - though it should be noted that many films in this horror thriller genre have 100 or more of these obscenities, and most of the foul words in "Get Out" are confined to three or four quick scenes in which Rod the TSA agent swears for comedic effect, but more offensively delivers brief bursts of comically intended descriptions of sex. 

Otherwise, it's the climactic violence that earns the R rating, with attempted strangulations and stabbings involved as well as a couple of unexpected car crashes. While "Get Out" is certainly not for kids or teens, it is exciting, witty, and intelligent and should be entertaining to most adult fans of thrillers. However, its occasional bursts of profanities and obscenities and its violent yet tastefully shot climactic moments require extreme caution.

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