Tip: Don't get influenced by the ratings that much. See for yourself.
Warning: There are NO spoilers in my review, but there is a general characteristic regarding the main character and the Chinese people in the movie. (related to the complaints)
I watched this movie on 3D and I generally liked it. My expectations were lower, especially as I saw the rating was quite low for a movie of that type - it's supposed to be impressive, therefore more people would love it. A commercial movie related to history sounds pretty bad enough, adding that the action develops in China and the main character is a white man, and that they are fighting against monsters. All that sounded like it might turn out to be complete bullshit, but...
It's actually not. First of all, in the beginning of the movie there is an introduction about The Great Wall of China and it is mentioned that the movie is based on one of the LEGENDS about it. Secondly, the white men arriving there are just warriors who are traveling in order to find useful goods, and they are not presented in the best light - they are fighting for their basic needs and for their personal profit, they don't trust anybody, even their own friends. While the Chinese people are presented in a good way - they are hardworking, skillful, honourable, trustworthy as much as they could be in such times. They fight for their country and they are ready to die for it, they're not cowards who just take what they want for themselves and run away. This contrast is one of the main points of the movie.
Also, there is a beautiful message behind the whole story. It's not just action with monsters. So I'd say everything unusual in this movie about which many people complain, is actually pretty reasonable.
Besides that, I noticed that the effects are not that good in certain scenes, but generally they're well made. You get into the movie, it doesn't look much like a movie set, even on 3D where the flaws can be seen more easily sometimes.
I generally love historical action movies, and while I prefer for them to be historically correct and I find it important, I think that sometimes it's better that they're not because this causes a lot of conflicts and we can never be sure how correct they are exactly. In Hollywood everything is biased, pretty much, so maybe it's a much better idea if such movies are based on legends and just have meaningful morals of the story. That seems to be good enough, like in this movie.
There are some pretty intense moments, so if you get scared easily, maybe you should be careful with this movie. It gets tense and it's about war after all.
Warning: There are NO spoilers in my review, but there is a general characteristic regarding the main character and the Chinese people in the movie. (related to the complaints)
I watched this movie on 3D and I generally liked it. My expectations were lower, especially as I saw the rating was quite low for a movie of that type - it's supposed to be impressive, therefore more people would love it. A commercial movie related to history sounds pretty bad enough, adding that the action develops in China and the main character is a white man, and that they are fighting against monsters. All that sounded like it might turn out to be complete bullshit, but...
It's actually not. First of all, in the beginning of the movie there is an introduction about The Great Wall of China and it is mentioned that the movie is based on one of the LEGENDS about it. Secondly, the white men arriving there are just warriors who are traveling in order to find useful goods, and they are not presented in the best light - they are fighting for their basic needs and for their personal profit, they don't trust anybody, even their own friends. While the Chinese people are presented in a good way - they are hardworking, skillful, honourable, trustworthy as much as they could be in such times. They fight for their country and they are ready to die for it, they're not cowards who just take what they want for themselves and run away. This contrast is one of the main points of the movie.
Also, there is a beautiful message behind the whole story. It's not just action with monsters. So I'd say everything unusual in this movie about which many people complain, is actually pretty reasonable.
Besides that, I noticed that the effects are not that good in certain scenes, but generally they're well made. You get into the movie, it doesn't look much like a movie set, even on 3D where the flaws can be seen more easily sometimes.
I generally love historical action movies, and while I prefer for them to be historically correct and I find it important, I think that sometimes it's better that they're not because this causes a lot of conflicts and we can never be sure how correct they are exactly. In Hollywood everything is biased, pretty much, so maybe it's a much better idea if such movies are based on legends and just have meaningful morals of the story. That seems to be good enough, like in this movie.
There are some pretty intense moments, so if you get scared easily, maybe you should be careful with this movie. It gets tense and it's about war after all.