It takes a certain type of Western arrogance to make a play for the Chinese market through a fantasy reimagining of its greatest landmark’s history, but hey, this is Hollywood, baby. Consider the implications of a Chinese blockbuster pitched aggressively at American theatres, telling how Mount Rushmore was attacked by aliens but only survived because Michelle Yeoh defended it. But then: this is a US-Chinese co-production, shot entirely in China, with a mainly Chinese cast and by a Chinese director. Good or bad, you can’t attribute the whole thing to Tinseltown. Defend it from what? The Tao Tei: a bunch of big hungry alien lizard-dogs, the product of a meteor, intent on breaching the wall and eating everyone beyond it. They can run and climb and bite and God knows what else. All a bit of a shock for (Irish? I feel like maybe he’s Irish) William and his mate, but the Chinese warriors are well prepared for them. It’s here that The Great Wall gives its hosts their due: rather than show the army helpless without Great White Matt to save them, it lets us know they’re organised, mighty and nattily colour-coordinated. A well-mounted early sequence, which Damon handily explains to his friend for our benefit, shows them defending the wall using inventive medieval technology: all giant cogs, wooden trebuchets and big flaming metal balls to fling at the Tao Tei. It’s here that the 3D sort of works, giving a sense of depth, but not scale: like last year’s Warcraft, it desperately wants to be BIG, but makes the mistake of thinking 3D is enough to achieve that. A lot of the dialogue is in subtitled Mandarin, unusually for a tentpole film like this, which is something I’d usually applaud for its adherence to realism in the knowledge that it might be unpopular with mainstream audiences. Here it misses the point, though: I watched this, as should anyone who enjoys big, silly films, on a giant screen in 3D. Reading subtitles in this environment is both physically difficult and a misreading of audience intent, as it forces you to focus on something other than the big slow-motion monster that’s about to eat your nose off. This cuts both ways: in China a lot of it will be in subtitled English, causing the same problems, not that this seems to have dented its box-office returns much. The 3D is where the problem is, overall: The Great Wall’s entire raison d’etre is to be in 3D and have big monsters and explosions fly towards your face for a couple of hours. The technology, which seems to be dwindling in popularity in the West, is still big business in Asia, which explains the overreliance on it here, but for me it felt slightly old-fashioned even just a few short years on from 3D’s most recent boom period. It reminded me of watching 2012’s Wrath Of The Titans, which was such a transparent exercise in throwing 3D shapes towards you and not bothering with much else that it feels like it’s from another age.