iTunes Exclusive Episode The Great Wall

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Greetings, Empire of Ember and Oremembers.
If you are hearing the sound of my voice, it means the following conditions have been
met.
At least once in your life, you have listened to the Clubhouse podcast live every Sunday,
night, seven Eastern, four Pacific, your one-stop shop for all things pop culture.
But it also means you subscribe to the show on iTunes or your favorite podcasting app, because
it is time for another...
I choose, I choose it.
The 262nd one of these bad boys, just climb in the ladder baby, welcome.
My name is Rob.
I am the executive producer of the Clubhouse podcast, and I can build a pretty good wall, but
not a great wall.
I'm not alone for this particular episode, Jordy me across the desk as he tends to do
from time to time.
Because the official fact checker of this show, and a man who believes in walls, I don't
know, I just want to say that.
You may know him as Fondongo, but his mom and name, Don Ford, I'm going to come
Don Ford, welcome, sir.
Well, being Floyd the walls, when my all-time fair is all in all, we're just another
break in.
Whenever we do one of these bad boys, it is to review something, and this particular episode
is no exception to that, because of that, because of that, because of a turn, because
more comfortably than I am.
That's true.
With a new movie directed by Yimu Zhang, the guy that brought you hero, House of a thousand
daggers, and curse of the golden flower, it is the great wall.
Before we start this whole thing, yes, sir.
We got to thank our great friend, Mary Ann, and everybody at Slyfox, Zininini, Zininini,
Zininini, Zininini, such fans of those guys are so good to us.
Incredible people at Slyfox.
We love them all.
Give us the opportunity to see films before they're released so we can tell you about
them, and you can make good decisions about where you're going to put your heart
earn money.
And we got to see this in 3D.
We didn't do.
Let's talk about this film.
It is me, Damon.
He plays William, William is a mercenary, who is in China with fellow mercenary, towbar played
by Game of Thrones veteran Pedro Pascal, he's that one guy, he's that one guy, it's
in the thing.
Yeah.
In China to get a hold of something they've heard of called Black Powder, because as we
know, the Chinese invented gunpowder, and they didn't get around to a lot of the world
right away.
Well, are on their way to find the Black Powder, they get attacked at their camp by
something, and they kill it by and also remove one of its limbs.
What they don't know is what they've killed.
So in their journeys, they are captured by the Nameless Army, at the Great Wall, at
the Great Wall of China, and they give them this limb, and they're like, hold on, how
did you do this?
I don't know what you did.
And let me say, this is set probably how many thousands of years ago it's ancient
China, ancient China.
So what they learn is this limb comes from a creature, and these these creatures are
like a hoard, and they attack every 60 years, and it's almost time.
So they're trying to figure out how to beat these things, because the way these things work,
is there's these little worker animals or creatures that kill and bring their food back
to their queen, and their queen actually runs everything.
They come like an ant, almost, almost.
So they end up having to make a choice, stand and fight, or take off.
I've got to be honest here, and this is me being honest, and that's all of the empire
ever asks of me.
I'm not going to sugarcoat this.
I enjoyed this film.
So did I.
Chad normally would be with us for these, but he is under the weather this evening.
And we're showing the basket.
We hope he gets well, but he does have a written review at www.clv.com, which coincidentally
is our website, a shocker.
I really enjoyed this film, and let me tell you why.
When I was a kid, many, many years ago, whenever Saturday morning cartoons, and yes
kids, there was a time where cartoons were shown on Saturday morning with that days.
Whenever that time would end, where I lived in South Florida, and I've heard this in other
sections of the country, too, there would be a matte name movie that they would show in
the afternoon on TV, and it would rotate, sometimes it was kung fu theater, or sometimes
it was Tarzan theater, or sometimes it was in a western, or it was a swash buckling adventure
with Errol Flynn, or something of its ilk.
That's what this movie reminds me of.
That matte, nice style adventure film that I can imagine young kids going into getting
into the theater, and just spending the afternoon at the theater, and watching this, and
being amazed at all the spectacle, because the visual effects here are beautiful, visually
gorgeous.
It's not one of those films.
Don't expect Shakespeare, because you're not going to get changed.
This is a film that you can enjoy just for what it is.
It knows what it is, and it stays in its light.
Matt Damon did not pick this script up and say, this is my next Oscar.
He picked up this script and he said, you know what, let's throw a ponytail on this head
and go do this thing.
And the thing is about Matt Damon, which I put at WWE WDK, the Kolbaos Podcast, which
I just checked in the Stiller website.
I put on there that the power works for him.
People worry that you know, it's kind of be the Matt Damon from Boston from Goodwill,
Honey, and all that other stuff, but on the other hand, he's a total opposite of
Marky Mark from Paris, Texas, okay?
I'm going to bring you the limits, you know what this, you know what that mentioning
that role does to me.
But I'm trying to make the point, that's the best point.
The only thing is though, there is a little bit, and I've said this too, there is a
little bit with him of Kevin Costner, Robin Hood, Prince of Thevesism, where that, that,
that the accent kind of comes and goes and we're never quite sure where the accent
comes from, but he didn't bother me because he's been around the world, that character
has been around the world.
But it didn't bother me.
Like it didn't take away from my enjoyment of this film.
The costuming is beautiful, everything works really well.
Visuals, we got to talk about this.
Oh, visually, divisual effects are amazing.
I mean, the thing I liked about this film visually is you think the great walls just
a bunch of bricks, but it showed the inner layering of the walls, the inner layers,
the inner layers, the inner layers of the wall.
And then it's like this is like a big mechanical thing.
This is more than a wall, this is like a big machine.
And the one thing which I really were said that, you know, this is on, this is like
getting my attention.
I like this thing was when the first attack wave comes, they know it's coming.
So they get ready, you see all these things open up in the wall and all these mechanical
things ready, where they're so ready for the defense and the offense of that wall, it's
like then obviously they are set here that silence in that first wave comes up for
that first wave comes like, this is on, this is interesting to see how the so many different
things open up in the wall because they're ready for the defense of these against these
things.
And it's really cool weaponry that they use in this.
It's just this movie, if I had to sum up this movie in one word, it would be fun.
Yeah, there's a lot of people that are going to try to go see this movie and want this
big war epic.
And that's not what this film is.
This is not dances with wolves.
This is not the bridge over the river Qui.
This is just a fun movie that you can go see.
And really, you could almost call this a family film.
There's a couple of, no, all of us stay with me.
There are some of it that the younger kids are going to kind of freak out about.
But there's nothing, like if your kids like older elementary school, I don't think that
this would bother them as much.
I was a little surprised that they didn't get the R rating because there are some brutal
scenes.
The rings.
I mean, it shows them jumping down.
I'm going to say that she's in an all the sudden, uh, they don't come up.
Well, war is hell, but yeah, yeah.
But it's not as graphic as it could be.
Oh, we got as graphic as there are other films that are out there.
So I think it was toned down a little bit for you, but still, you got a warning where there's
a heads up on that.
And it's an hour 43, which I thought it was really well-paced.
There's a little bit of way down to it, but not too bad.
On me, my only real complaint is I was really into this.
If you did the watch gauge, if I had the watch gauge, it would be 35 minutes for you.
It was where I was.
I probably would have been the same.
For those of you that don't know, the watch gauge is what we use to fix the first time
that I looked at my watch during the film with them a very time conscious person, regardless.
But the 35 minutes for me to look at my watch the first time, that's a good rating.
Yeah.
We've seen 10 minutes.
We've seen five.
Yeah.
But I just thought everything was really, really good.
And I really liked this.
What's the fall of this film?
Until about the last quarter of the film, I think the plot is kind of, you did say the
plot kind of fell apart for you.
Yeah, I think at the end, it's kind of just like, well, there is a certain level of suspension
of disbelief.
I understand that, but it just feels like a film.
I thought the word was so intense, and this is really going, but then the end is kind
of, but still, I didn't hate it.
I still thought it flowed well, and it was our 45, it didn't seem too long, it didn't seem
like, oh, please get over, oh, no, that didn't happen with me.
I just, I thought it was really well done.
I thought a lot of the action sequences were really well done for those of you that
don't know part of the story of this was written by Mel Brooks's son who was also responsible
for World War Z.
So some of the effects you're going to see are very reminiscent of some of the things
you saw in World War Z.
I can see that now, but yeah, I'm going to say this though.
What you don't hear very often from me is watching this visually, and I mean visually,
it's worth the 3D and I put that in your written review, I don't say that too often.
I thought there were 3D, really enhanced a lot of those battle scenes, and you know
I'm talking about, like, I could see where you would say that I was hoping for a little
bit more from the 3D myself.
Some did look great, but I was hoping for a little bit more of the slam bang stuff
than we got in the 3D.
I think you could go either way and wouldn't affect you.
I thought it was worth the extra call.
No, no, and you said that in your written review, I just, I don't know that I fully agree
with that.
It's an enjoyable film, but I don't know that I would be willing to tell the Empire
to spring for the 3D.
If you want to, I'm not going to stop you, but I don't think it's necessary in this particular
case.
I think it is.
I think it's okay.
That's fair.
Matt Damon, it looks like he has fun with this, Tanging, who plays Commander Lin May.
I think she's excellent in this.
Will him defose in this?
Of all people.
It's like, what do you do here?
He's aging backwards.
And I don't know what's going on.
You know, Tanging, she gets my, she got my shot on on on on.
Yes, she did.
She wasn't that when tears in heaven.
Huh?
Where she played two characters.
Yeah, if you saw this past year, if I'm not mistaken, remember?
Yeah.
Of course, she played two different characters, which, so her acting was very, very good.
But I think that CGI worked well.
If you knew what CGI put to the point, you forgot it was CGI, which I think is a compliment.
Oh, so I just thought that part kind of dragged at the end, but beyond that, I really
have no other complaints.
But yeah, it's a fun thing.
Leave the brain at the door.
Have some fun.
Yeah, it's, it's one of those films that, again, like I said before, it knows what it
needs to be.
And it is that thing.
It doesn't, it doesn't pretend to be anything more than what it is.
And it knows what it is.
And you could tell the cast really enjoyed themselves making this film.
And I, I just, I had fun.
Yeah, the credits for all of those, like, and I'm right.
I feel good about this.
Me too.
Any thoughts we want to say before we go to the final analysis?
Yeah.
The way we do the final analysis on the show, we're not going to give you thumbs-up
thumbs down.
We're not going to give you anything like that.
We do things a little bit differently around here.
We ask two questions.
Question number one is, would you see this film again if the answer is no, then we're
done here.
But if the answer is yes, it's how far are you willing to go to see it?
The spectrum works from, from best to worst, full price at the theater down to twilight
down to Matt Nade down to early morning down to the second one at the dollar theater down
to red box down to Netflix down to cable because we don't do the stars, we don't do
samurai swords.
We're better than that.
I like samurai swords.
Yeah.
Don't get wrong.
Do you see this film again?
Yeah.
How far are you willing to go?
I would say, see it in the theaters in 3D, somewhere between a matinee and a twilight, but
I think it's the 3D worth it.
So see it in the theater somehow.
I wouldn't give the full price 3D, but I would say, yes, first of all, I'm going to say,
yes, I would say this again.
I'd very much enjoyed this.
It would depend on my mood.
If I was at the theater at a matinee showing and I was in the right mood, I would see
it that way.
But if I was looking for something on a red box just for the evening, with a bunch of
people together when I watch a movie, I'd do it that way too.
I'm kind of good either way.
But either way, you need to go see this film.
Yeah, very good.
Totally worth it.
It is the great wall.
Before we end this thing again, we got to think Marianne and our great friends of
Sly Fox.
Sydney.
Sydney.
Sydney.
Sydney.
Research fans in those guys.
Thank you so much for the invite.
Such wonderful people, and they're so nice to us.
That being said, let's do the plugs.
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I.N.
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Questions, comments, concerns.
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And Jules Womick is with Chad right now.
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So until next time, for Don for the Empire, I'm Rob.
Clubhouse is closed and oh yeah, you can have pretty palmerness to be pretty awesome.