FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2017 | WWW.PGCITIZEN.CA A&E 17 The best of local news, CITIZEN arts, views and more every Thursday EXTRA ■CITIZEN SO" UNIVERSAL PICTURES HANDOUT PHOTO BY JASIN BOLAND VIA THE WASHINGTON POST Pedro Pascal and Matt Damon star in The Great Wall. The Great Wall is less than great Ann HORNADAY The Washington Post The Great Wall arrives with a lot at stake, being the most expensive co-production ever filmed in China, and the first one to feature a bona fide movie star, in the person of Matt Damon. The film met with early criticism for casting Damon as what many presumed would be the usual “white savior.” It turns out that his character, a mercenary soldier in an unspecified long-ago era who has come to China on the prowl for gunpowder, is less an out-and-out hero than a foil for ideas of national identity and cultural chauvinism that China is obviously eagerly to export for global consumption. To buy that message, though, viewers must first buy into The Great Wall, which, despite the hype that has surrounded it, feels like a letdown. An action drama cut from the same fantastical cloth as The Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones - one of whose stars, Pedro Pascal, plays Damon’s wisecracking sidekick - the movie might have been epic and startlingly original, but instead plays out like a re-tread of every effects-heavy movie that’s been fatally over-tweaked to out-CGI Avatar. For every stirring set piece of disciplined Chinese warriors doing acrobatic battle while decked out in shades of crimson, purple and iridescent blue, there are repetitive shots of lizardlike monsters being speared in the gullet, their green blood spewing out like so much Kids’ Choice Awards slime. In an opening scene reminiscent of his intergalactic sojourn in The Martian, Damon - who plays a scruffy bow-and-arrow-for-hire named William Garin - plods across the terra-cotta-hued North Chinese desert with his henchmen, who later are attacked by an unseen being that leaves only one scaly-toed claw behind. Along with Tovar (Pascal), William is later taken hostage by (The) movie might have been epic and startlingly original, but instead plays out like a re-tread of every effects-heavy movie that's been fatally over-tweaked to out-CGI Avatar. commander Lin (Jing Tian) and her general (Zhang Hanyu), who with their thousands of troops are preparing for an invasion of the Tao Tei, a breed of voraciously destructive monster that appears, every 60 years, to remind humans of the wages of untempered greed. They’re kind of like locusts, but with more scales, teeth and weird eye sockets in their shoulders. A crack marksman, William soon allies himself with the principled and courageous Lin, despite the misgivings of Tovar and another English-speaking prisoner, played by Willem Dafoe as if he’s not only trying to get out of the tower, but out of the movie. Written by a team of American screenwriters and directed by Zhang Yimou, The Great Wall groans with the weight of wooden dialogue, starchy performances and a vaguely Irish brogue that Damon continually rediscovers, like a veritable lost shoe, throughout the film’s brisk running time. It might be redundant, ridiculous, monotonous and only fitfully entertaining, but it’s over blessedly quick. Fans of Zhang - who directed such rich, extravagantly constructed dramas as Raise the Red Lantern and House of the Flying Daggers - will recognize little of the master’s hand in The Great Wall, which, despite that rainbow-hued armour and some eye-catching sets, lacks the kind of visual elegance for which he’s become rightfully revered. For Damon’s part, he delivers a stolid, workmanlike performance that remains grim despite attempts at Princess Bride-like levity that land with an anachronistic thud. The Chinese actors similarly hit their marks with professionalism and little else, although Ryan Zheng is undeniably appealing as a frightened guard William befriends. But character and story aren’t what drive The Great Wall. It’s spectacle, which in this case involves not just the imposing titular structure, but cadres of spear-wielding female warriors, tethered to ropes, an airborne flotilla of giant white silk balloons and a climactic sequence filmed at the Imperial Palace. By then, the preposterousness of The Great Wall has given way to simple, sweet-natured naivete. The Great Wall isn’t great. It isn’t even very good. But it’s a start. — One star out of four Love, loss in Montreal featured in The Lonely Hearts Hotel Lauren LA ROSE The Canadian Press TORONTO — Listening to her father recount colourful tales of his Depression-era childhood provided an unexpected source of intrigue and inspiration for Heather O’Neill. “He was born in the ’20s, and he used to always tell me stories about being a little kid during the Depression and all of the gangsters he had met,” recalled the acclaimed author and two-time Scotiabank Giller Prize finalist. “For me, as a kid, it just seemed so wonderful. The way I pictured it was these magical thieves breaking into banks, and there was something so romantic about it.” O’Neill was motivated to delve deeper into researching the historical period, as well as the streets and architecture in her hometown of Montreal during that time. The city serves as the central backdrop in O’Neill’s new novel The Lonely Hearts Hotel (HarperCollins) a sweeping, decades-spanning saga of love and loss between two orphans. Readers may be inclined to pull out a map or fire up their search engines to follow along with the text. O’Neill outlines rich, descriptive details of intersections and locales specific to her beloved home- town throughout the novel. “All the buildings kind of have personalities,” said O’Neill, citing a list of notable neighbourhoods from the affluent Westmount suburb to the downtown Plateau area she describes as “the love of her life.” “It’s definitely a character for me and shapes the esthetic of my books,” she said of Montreal. “I always find with Montreal the true facts are always so much more magical than anything you could imagine. It just expands your imaginative possibilities, and it gives you just more to build on.” The Lonely Hearts Hotel opens in the winter of 1914 at a Montreal orphanage O'NEILL and follows the trajectory of two children: plucky, spirited, comical Rose, and the reserved, sweet, piano prodigy Pierrot. Rose and Pierrot manage to not have their spirits dimmed by the abuse which runs rampant in their orphanage. The pair are enlisted to perform in the city for members of Montreal’s high society. Along the way, they form a powerful bond that evolves and blossoms from friendship into love. When they become separated as teenagers, the duo must contend with outside forces looking to impede their paths to true independence - and back to one another. For Rose, it’s the wealthy Mr. McMahon, whose children she is enlisted to help care for; for Pierrot, it’s the lecherous grip of Sister Eloise, a nun at the orphanage. “(Mr. McMahon and Sister Eloise) approach (Rose and Pierrot) by declaring their love for their respective characters; but actually, they’re out to destroy them,” said O’Neill of the antagonists. “They’re attracted to their independence, but they have this desire to clip their wings which is really tragic... “(Rose and Pierrot) are so magnetic, and they’re trying to be together; but everybody kind of falls in love with them and is trying to keep them for themselves.” O’Neill said she liked the idea of Rose and Pierrot having no knowledge of their parentage or anything related to their pasts, allowing them to “make up their narrative from scratch.” What’s more, these two children abandoned at birth ultimately find their sense of refuge in the other’s company. “Their search for one another is also their search for their innocence to kind of reclaim who they were before they descended into the underworld,” said O’Neill. “Once they find each other, they can go and recreate this childhood dream, and recreate this life that they wanted to (have) as children.”