This hasn’t been the only issue Universal has had to deal with since production on the film began. The difference between the two incidents is that The Mummy’s trailer was viewed as a funny if unfortunate incident, whereas The Great Wall’s just creates cause for concern.
The trailer, which was published on both YouTube and Twitter, was quickly taken down but some Twitter users were quick to download it.Įventually, the trailer got turned into a meme, with video editors replacing screams from various movies with the high-pitched wail Tom Cruise lets loose at one point. Back in December, Universal accidentally published a trailer for The Mummy missing the background sound effects.
Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time that a movie under Universal Pictures’ banner has had to deal with an unfortunate trailer incident.
I give The Wall a few props for having the guts to stretch this premise out, but I just can't recommend it, solely because I think you will be bored out of your mind.This movie cost $150 million to make and has graphics like a PS2 game. That being said, all of these elements are left in the dust when 10 minute take of Aaron Taylor-Johnson crawling in the dirt, with hardly any musical score to back it up, is all you have to watch. The direction is well-done for sure, the performances are believable enough, the atmosphere is enthralling, and the sense of tension is even present. I feel as though The Wall is far too long (even at 90 minutes) for the story it's trying to tell. For example in American Sniper when the film opens with a sniper on the roof, you flash back in order to see how he got to that point, which was a very interesting way of expanding something simple. In the end, there are far better war films that showcase a particular premise as simply a portion of their movie as a whole. To be quite honest, I love given one-location films a shot, because many of them are quite good if they are accompanied with a great script, and seeing that Doug Liman was taking this as his next project intrigued me quite a bit, but it really is just a big letdown. There really isn't anything to spoil about this film, because you kind of expect everything that goes down. The only action that you do get, happens off-screen in the final few moments of the film and then it abruptly ends. It just kind of starts, bores you, and then ends.Īs aforementioned, this film is a real bore, but that's only due to the fact that there isn't anything interesting going on and characters just mutters curse words and stop themselves from bleeding. There is nothing bad about this movie in terms of filmmaking, nor is there anything all that likeable. John Cena is not utilized enough and although Aaron Taylor-Johnson does give quite a strong performance, he could've used the company of Cena a little longer in my opinion. That's the the biggest issue this film suffers from being that it feels more like a scene that should have something coming before and after it. Most war films will dedicate themselves to certain sequences for as long as they have to, and while I was watching The Wall, I couldn't help but feel as though this scene could've been condensed to about 30 minutes and used at the end of a better movie. For the first 10 minutes I found myself engaged, but I was bored out of my mind not long after. While the tension itself is very much present, it's the fact that a simple story like this should've been told as a short film, de to the fact that there is not even close to enough substance to fill a feature film. After this set-up concludes within the first 10-15 minutes, you spend the entire film behind the wall. Shane is taken out, leaving Isaac tramped behind a brick wall, which is the one thing keeping him from being shot being able to talk to the man doing the shootings, this film takes a very steep dive in terms of pacing. The Wall is a film that takes too simple of a premise, stretching it over the length of a feature film, making it become very boring, even within its first 20 minutes.Īs soon as this film opens, you're introduced to both Isaac and Shane, who are two men left in the battlefield after the end of the war back in 2007. One-location films can be incredible, but you need to have quite a bit of substance in order to hold onto your audience for those 90 minutes.
Sadly, his latest crack at the can in The Wall is just about the complete opposite of where he should've gone next. Smith was, to the missed opportunities in Jumper, to creating great work in The Bourne Identity or Edge of Tomorrow, I'm always cautiously optimistic about his next outing. When it comes to the quality of films that director Doug Liman has helmed, they really are across the board.