Director Gore Verbinski is known for Pirates of the Caribbean, The Ring, and…Nathan Lane’s Mousehunt. He’s known for placing little value on an explained plotline, and it has worked for him in the past. With A Cure for Wellness, the result is a film that gives you the creeps but probably won’t stay with you for very long. Says the NYT:

You might feel like you’re in the company of a manic cinephile friend breathlessly recounting his favorite movie scenes in no particular order. You admire his devotion, his taste and his scholarship, but in the end the experience is probably more satisfying for him than it is for you.

Taking place at a wellness center in the Swiss Alps, the film follows a Wall Street stockbroker (Dane DeHaan) sent to retrieve his company’s missing CEO (Harry Groener). In the remote location, he deals with memories of his father’s suicide while beginning to suspect that everything is not as idyllic as it first seems. His strength of mind is tested when he unlocks the secrets of the hydrotherapy treatments, but as he begins to have the same symptoms as the patients, it might be too late.

This one is for horror film lovers. It’s going to remind you of your favorites, particularly Shutter Island, Crimson Peak, and Sorrentino’s Youth. For the rest of us, maybe it’s best to wait until it’s cut down for television so you can enjoy the thrills outside of its two-and-a-half hour entirety.

1.8 out of 5 Mohawks.

Cocky mercenary William (Matt Damon) is looking for gunpowder when he ends up at the Great Wall of China. There he meets the wall’s guardians Lin Mae (Jing Tian) and Wang (Andy Lau). There’s a glowering Western prisoner played by Willem Dafoe in the mix as well. They uncover the truth about the Wall: it is there to protect humankind from the hungry creatures that emerge every 60 years looking for a snack. Of course, they have a taste for people.

House of Flying Daggers director Zhang Yimou is one of the best-known wuxia (martial arts) filmmakers of all time. We’re not sure if it was the abundant CGI or the influence of Hollywood that threw him off his game in The Great Wall, but the film only made it to “bad monster movie” level by Dana’s standards.

Says the NYT:

The whole thing plays out as if it had been thought up by someone who, while watching “Game of Thrones” and smoking a bowl, started riffing on walls, China and production money.

1.7 out of 5 Mohawks.