New Logo

New Logo for Lightning Productions! Simple and to the point. I still might type in the words Lightning Productions in white, we'll see. Tell me what you think!

Great Wall Review

     Saw The Great Wall and was ready to be wow'd by the spectacle. I was, there was certainly a lot of amazing costume design and beutiful cinematography. Shot of The Wall against lush green valleys and grey mountains with the sun rising up behind it all. Really the scenery was fantastic.

   Matt Damon plays a theif of some kind who has a somewhat murderous past. Unfrortunately, this past is never touched on too much so I think his character suffers a bit for it. He has a selfish partner  that just wants to rob and flee.

     They're captured and held prisoner by the Chinese army. During their capture, a huge monsterous force invades the walls. These creatures come out to kill when mankind becomes too greedy.

       The monstrousities can only be killed if the mother is killed. It's when the monsters arrive at the walls that it becomes a nonstop monster movie. Here we get combat spectacle after spectacle.

     The red and blue design on the armor is outstanding. There's plenty of great action scenes. I kind of thought there would be different monsters besides just the one kind so it can be a little repetitive. I was kind of expecting some dragons (good or bad), giants or other creatures, so I felt that was a missed opportunity storywise. 

     Matt Damon and his co-star (Pedro Pascal from Game of Thrones) do the most they can with the limited lines they have. Matt's irish accent is a little subtle at times and I wasn't sure what accent it was in the beginning. William Dafoe plays another fellow thief/prisoner. Again, what is his story? Unknown but he does the most with it as always. Another missing cool back story opportunity would be what is an irishman and a spaniard doing together? What was their first crime together? How did they meet? What did Damon do in the past that was so bad? These questions and more will unfortunately remain unanswered. This movie is a mostly grand adventure and spectacle with an almost love story in it. The music is stupendous.

So, everything considered...I give it a 7.8.

It's a good, entertaining time, but that's mostly it. Not much character development. It has beauty and it's well shot, great cinematography, great music but not the deepest film.

    

Push Ups for The Troops - Day 5

Winter only slowed me but never stopped me!
22 soldiers a day take their own lives from PTSD, still hard to believe, but even if the number is exaggerated it still reminds of the untreated status of our troops.