Over the last decade or so, China has grown to become the second largest movie market in the world (and is currently on pace to surpass the U.S. in the next few years), which explains why Hollywood has suddenly shown great interest in the region. But while pairing one of the industry’s biggest stars (Matt Damon) with esteemed Chinese director Zhang Yimou might sound like an exciting idea on paper, it lacks the prestige that such a high-profile collaboration warrants. “The Great Wall” is a fairly generic monster movie at its core (think “Starship Troopers” in Ancient China), and although it boasts some fantastic visuals and rousing action that’s entertaining in the moment, it’s ultimately pretty forgettable.

In 11th century China, European mercenaries William Garin (Damon) and Pero Tovar (Pedro Pascal) have ventured deep into the country in search of a mysterious black powder that will bring them riches back home. After surviving a monster attack the night before, they stumble upon a secret garrison of Chinese soldiers called the Nameless Order – each faction divided by brightly colored armor – that’s stationed at a massive wall designed to keep out invaders. Led by General Shao (Zhang Hanyu), the Nameless Order serves as the last line of defense against the Tao Tie, a colony of mythical creatures that crashed into China on a meteor 2,000 years ago.

Shao believes that the Tao Tie have been sent by the gods to punish humans for their greed, emerging from a nearby mountain every 60 years to attack, although this time around, they’ve arrived earlier than usual. The Tao Tei have also evolved significantly since their last confrontation, leading Shao’s main adviser, Strategist Wang (Andy Lau), to devise a new plan of defense before the next invasion. Meanwhile, William and Pero plot their escape with the help of a fellow captive named Ballard (Willem Dafoe). But when William acquires a newfound sense of honor and duty after bonding with Lin Mae (Tian Jing), the beautiful but deadly commander of the high-flying, all-female Crane Corps, he decides to stay behind and fight alongside her.

“The Great Wall” isn’t the kind of film that you’d expect from an accomplished director such as Zhang Yimou. The closest he’s come to making a movie like this in the past is the one-two punch of “Hero” and “House of Flying Daggers,” but those two wuxia films had more artistry in a single reel than the entirety of “The Great Wall.” Though Yimou injects a nice pop of color into the production and delivers some enjoyable action beats, it’s not enough to compensate for the formulaic and underdeveloped story. Damon and Jing’s characters are the only ones afforded any real depth, while the rest of the Chinese cast (save perhaps for Lau) are treated as canon fodder. Even Pascal is wasted as Damon’s quippy sidekick, seemingly only there as a reminder of his dodgy past.

Clocking in at a brisk 103 minutes, “The Great Wall” has very little on its mind beyond its B-movie premise, operating like a weird hybrid between a Hollywood swashbuckling adventure and a Chinese fantasy film. But while the attempt to blend Western and Eastern sensibilities is certainly admirable, you can feel the strain as it tries to appease both audiences, like a traditional Chinese dish reinvented using hamburgers and French fries. It’s not bonkers enough and yet too silly to be taken seriously. Though it works just fine as a piece of mindless entertainment (and this is one movie where you definitely need to check your brain at the door), “The Great Wall” really should have been better considering the level of talent involved.

There are film franchises where each installment comes with a checklist of the beats the film will hit. A chase, a shot, a musical cue, a line of dialogue, a plot device, those sorts of things. “Jason Bourne” takes that idea to an absurd level. This is a film where the audience isn’t just reminded that they’re watching a Bourne film (though they are, constantly); at times, they’re watching a featurette on the making of a Bourne film. Several scenes are staged in such a manner that they look like test runs of the final shot, rather than the final shot. The plot is rather threadbare for a series that prides itself on convoluted story lines, but the most damning thing about “Jason Bourne” is what a bloodless, cold viewing experience it is. From start to finish, I was not emotionally invested in a single thing that took place. In fact, I couldn’t wait for it to be over – definitely a first for a Bourne film.

Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) is living off the grid, making money in underground fighting. He receives a visit from former operative Nicky Parsons (Julia Stiles), who tells Jason that she has hacked the CIA database and has uncovered information on Treadstone, the now-defunct program of which he was a part, as well as their latest program, which involves surveillance. The database hack draws the attention of Heather Lee (Alicia Vikander), a talented and ambitious coder who works for CIA director Robert Dewey (Tommy Lee Jones). Dewey enlists an assassin, known only as The Asset (Vincent Cassel), to find and kill Bourne. As Lee listens to Dewey talk about Bourne, she starts to question Dewey’s motives and volunteers to run point on Bourne’s capture (or death) in order to discover if there is more to the story.

There are two ripped-from-today’s-headlines subplots that are supposed to add intrigue and perhaps make for healthy conversation afterwards, but both play like square pegs jammed into round holes. Nicky stole the data to publish on a Wikileaks-type site; she only shared it with Jason because it would help him fill blanks in his memory. The other plot involves the new surveillance program, in which a social media giant teams up with the CIA to secretly spy on its users. Both are topics worthy of discussion, and yet neither of them is handled with the nuance that they deserve. They are just means to an end.

Speaking of filling blanks in Jason’s memory – that bit got old very quickly, especially when it was obvious what the missing piece was going to be. Jason’s Awful Truth flashbacks should have been heartbreaking, considering the circumstances, and yet those scenes seemed more focused on getting the ‘young Jason’ shots right (a growing trend in film, unfortunately) than they did on getting people to care about what they just saw.

The actors are fine, sort of. Damon can do this role in his sleep, and Jones practically is sleepwalking here. Vikander, though, may have had the easiest role of all; she shows less humanity here than she did in “Ex Machina,” and she wasn’t even human in that film. They’re setting her up to have an intriguing character arc in future installments, but that doesn’t really matter if this film doesn’t work and those installments never happen.

The lion’s share of the blame with regard to “Jason Bourne” falls on Paul Greengrass, its director and co-writer. He has done better, and he knows it. There is a (ridiculous) car chase at the end of the film that seems to have no purpose other than besting “The Blues Brothers” as the film that destroyed more cars than any other. Once the car chase ends, the chase continues on foot, but while that was happening, all I could think about was the dozens upon dozens of people who were injured by the car chase.

A quick search of the words ‘Paul Greengrass visceral’ pulls up over 50,000 hits, and in the past, the word ‘visceral’ has fit Greengrass’ films well. Here, however, it does not. Breaking a bunch of stuff on screen does not make a movie visceral – it makes a movie noisy. Both Matt Damon and “Jason Bourne” deserved better than this.

Sir Ridley Scott has never been the most emotional filmmaker. Most of the director’s movies have been driven by atmosphere and themes, not so much emotion. But that’s not the case with “The Martian,” a thrilling, human and moving sci-fi picture that is easily the most emotionally engaging film Scott has made in a long time.

Astronaut Mark Watney (Matt Damon) is stranded on Mars. After a storm hits during the first human expedition to the planet, Mark and his crew are forced to evacuate. However, he gets hurt and separated from his fellow crewmembers, and they leave the planet without him, presuming their friend to be dead. But the charming “space pirate” and wiseass survives, and he has to find a way to communicate with NASA back home and create more resources to stay alive long enough to be rescued. Thankfully, he’s a botanist – and the best botanist on Mars, according to him – which comes in handy with his new mission: survive.

The movie is far from a one-man show. Scott put together one hell of a cast with Jessica Chastain, Jeff Daniels, Kristen Wiig, Michael Peña, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Mackenzie Davis and more. They all play a role in Watney’s survival. The film, based on Andy Weir’s novel of the same name, is about the effort to save one man’s life. It’s about more than that, but first and foremost, it’s an inspiring story about the brighter side of humanity. “The Martian” is refreshingly optimistic, without any hint of naiveté, about the boundaries humans are capable of pushing and the effort we’d hopefully go to for one life. None of this comes off as phony or insincere, either.

Daniels plays the head of NASA, Teddy Sanders, and he has reservations about saving Mark. What could’ve been played as a smarmy, solely PR-minded character is humanized; he considers the recourses and risks involved. Most of the time, Sanders speaks the truth, which isn’t always great to hear. In other instances, he just doesn’t have the same optimism as someone like Mark Watney.

Damon is fantastic as the astronaut. Drew Goddard’s (“The Cabin in the Woods”) script is hilarious, and the actor nails every comedic bit. He makes Mark incredibly likable, and not only because he’s an inspiring figure. The botanist has hope that he’ll survive, but every so often, he has to come to terms with the fact he might die. These emotional scenes are powerful because of how likable Mark is, and how funny the film is as well.

There’s only one comedic bit that falls flat, and it’s only worth mentioning because it’s the sole misstep that “The Martian” makes. Donald Glover plays a pivotal role in the movie, but he’s acting in a different film. Goddard’s script is sharp and witty, but Glover’s performance is too broad, and it’s more suited for a Roland Emmerich disaster movie than this story.

Everything else, though, is top-notch. The images that Scott and cinematographer Dariusz Wolski created are dazzling – intimate and grand, yet subtle. They depict Mars as a beautiful landscape, showing the audience why Mark loves what he does, and if it comes down to it, will die doing what he loves. It’s zero surprise that the film is dazzling on a technical level. Scott always knows how to tell a story visually, but this time he packs his images with real emotion. Although “The Martian” is 141 minutes long, almost every minute is thrilling to watch.

When news spread that George Clooney’s latest directorial effort, “The Monuments Men,” wouldn’t be making its original December 2013 release date, many people were surprised, to say the least. After all, nothing sounded more Oscar-ready than a World War II film based on a true story and starring some of Hollywood’s finest actors. Although the studio’s official response on the matter was that Clooney needed more time to finish post-production, it was most likely because “The Monuments Men” just isn’t a very good film. It’s a lot better than most of the dreck that’s forced down our gullets this time of year, but for a movie overflowing with promise, it’s hard not to feel the sting of disappointment.

Clooney stars as Frank Stokes, an American art conservationist who leads a small platoon of experts – including museum curator James Granger (Matt Damon), architect Richard Campbell (Bill Murray), sculptor Walter Garfield (John Goodman), theater director Preston Savitz (Bob Balaban), French art dealer Jean-Claude Clermont (Jean Dujardin) and British professor Donald Jeffries (Hugh Bonneville) – into Europe during the final year of World War II. Their mission is to protect various monuments and buildings from being needlessly destroyed by Allied forces, as well as locate and retrieve the Nazi-stolen paintings and sculptures hand-picked for Hitler’s planned Führer Museum. After completing basic training, the men split up to undertake specific assignments across the war-torn continent, with Granger heading to Paris to meet a fellow museum curator (Cate Blanchett) who could be the key to tracking down some of the world’s most important cultural treasures.

Based on the 2009 book by Robert M. Edsel, the real-life story of the Monuments Men is practically tailor-made for the big screen; a unique slant on the typical WWII film that, at least on paper, appeared to be equal parts “Ocean’s Eleven” and “Inglourious Basterds.” Unfortunately, it’s nothing like that at all. The movie is stuck in first gear for most of its sluggish two-hour runtime, and by the time it finally begins to take shape into the film that many were expecting from the start, it’s over. It’s also a giant mess tonally, shuffling back and forth between lighthearted comedy and serious drama with such reckless abandon that you’d think it was a first-time director behind the camera. One minute, the platoon is goofing around as Alexandre Desplat’s jaunty, “Gomer Pyle”-esque musical score plays in the background, and the next minute, Clooney’s character is launching into one of his many monologues about the importance of art. It’s as if the director/star (who also co-wrote the screenplay with longtime partner Grant Heslov) was caught in two minds as to which kind of movie he wanted to make.

That carries over to the screenplay as well, which is packed with so many different subplots that there’s no room for character development. We never get to know any of the men beyond their names and job titles, and they spend so much time apart on side missions that they barely have the chance to interact as an ensemble. In fact, many of the characters aren’t given much to do at all. Murray, Goodman, Dujardin and Balaban are wasted in roles that could have been played by anyone, and while Bonneville gets a decent little arc, even his big emotional scene is undercut by Clooney’s questionable direction. There are some fun character moments throughout – especially the stuff with Murray and Balaban – but it’s not enough to counteract the rather pedestrian nature of the film. “The Monuments Men” is more “Leatherheads” than “Good Night, and Good Luck”; a stark reminder that although Clooney is capable of directing a great movie, he’s much better in front of the camera than behind it.

It’s hard to put down a movie like “Elysium.” Let’s rephrase that: it’s actually quite easy to put down a movie like “Elysium” – it just gives us no pleasure in doing so. It’s a movie that urges people to think of the needs of others, and the satisfaction that comes from helping the less fortunate. A noble cause, to be sure, but in order to make his point, writer/director Neill Blomkamp (“District 9”) resorts to painting with an awfully broad brush, and the complex issues of health care and the distribution of wealth that “Elysium” seeks to tackle are marginalized by half. What’s left to enjoy are the visuals and some visceral hand-to-hand combat, which is nice (think “Terminator 2,” with humans), but this is a movie that had bigger fish to fry, and let them off the hook.

Set in the year 2154, Earth has become decimated by overpopulation and depleted natural resources. The wealthiest people have abandoned Earth to live on Elysium, an orbiting space station with the technology to cure any sickness in seconds. Max (Matt Damon) is a former car thief trying to live an honest life working on a factory line. Max is exposed to a fatal dose of radiation on the job, and in return the company gives him pills to manage his pain and sends him on his way. Max, with only days to live, hits up his former crime boss Spider (Wagner Moura) for a chance to jump on one of his bootleg trips to Elysium with the hope that he can heal himself. Spider agrees to help him, but Max must pull a suicide mission first. In doing so, however, they find a way to share Elysium’s technological advances with everyone on Earth; they’ll just have to get past Elysium defense secretary Delacourt (Jodie Foster) and her dirtbag sleeper agent Kruger (Sharlto Copley) first.

This is a Big Idea Movie™, for sure, and Blomkamp does land a few punches, especially the ‘depersonalization of society’ aspect as we see Damon talking to an animatronic parole officer, and the erosion of worker’s rights, which boils down to the line ‘You’re lucky to have a job.’ If you sit and think about other aspects of the story, though, you’ll wind up with more questions than answers. Does the food the Elysians eat come from Earth? Would it even be safe to eat considering the circumstances, and would Earth-grown food be acceptable to the upper class citizens? Who’s making their booze? (The opening scene on Elysium features martinis by the pound.) Is there crime on Elysium? How can the Elysians breathe when there seems to be no artificial atmosphere? Seriously, ships just fly in from space and land on the ground.

Then there are the behind-the-scenes questions, such as: was Blomkamp afraid to tell Jodie Foster what to do? Foster is a damned fine actress, but she’s awful here, with a slipping accent and overly clipped enunciation. It didn’t help that her character’s ideology was never fleshed out, but even if it had been, Foster’s work here is proof that even the great actors need strong direction. Damon fares better, doing that everyman thing he does in most of his movies, though he’s believable as a tough-nosed street fighter as well. Alice Braga, who plays Max’s childhood crush Frey, doesn’t have to do much other than flash her saucer-like eyes. The rest of the cast doesn’t fare terribly well. Sharlto Copley pours the South African accent on thick as molasses, and Moura is unintelligible half of the time as well. The score takes a huge piece of the “Inception” playbook, which makes sense considering both films fancy themselves as high-concept, but Blomkamp’s script does not rise to the challenge.

A lot of movies are accused of not having a brain in their heads. “Elysium” has the opposite problem. It has a ridiculously large brain, thinking about dozens of things at once; it just has a hard time streamlining those thoughts into a cohesive narrative. It raises some fair questions about our society and the direction it’s headed, but this movie doesn’t adequately answer those questions. With any luck, there will be a director’s cut released in the near future that turns “Elysium” into the 2010s’ equivalent of “The Abyss,” another average theatrical release that benefited greatly from additional character and plot development.

To help cleanse your palate either before or after you’ve seen the film, however, we’ve compiled 15 of our favorite occasions when Matt Damon made with the funny. Your personal mileage may vary, but we’re guessing that, at the very least, you’ll get more laughs out of these clips than you will from “Green Zone.”

(Plus, don’t forget to head over to our “Green Zone” contest, where we’re giving away an Xbox 360!)

1. Glory Daze (1996): Okay, we’ll be honest with you: Damon’s barely in this film. It’s really a vehicle for his longtime buddy, Ben Affleck, who sports some seriously douche-tastic facial hair throughout the film. Although the remarkable number of recognizable faces to be found within the cast make it worth checking out (Sam Rockwell, Alyssa Milano, Matthew McConaughey, John Rhys-Davies, Kristin Bauer, French Stewart, Brendan Fraser, Leah Remini, Meredith Salinger, Mary Woronov, and Spaulding Gray all make appearances), the predominant reason we’ve included “Glory Daze” – which is, for the record, explores the hesitation all college graduates experience before entering the real world – is because no matter how many films he may eventually have to his credit, Matt Damon should never be allowed to escape the fact that, even though it was only for a few fleeting moments, he once played a character named Edward Pudwacker.

2. Dogma (1999): Kevin Smith movies aren’t generally where one goes to find eyebrow-raising theological discourse, but there are moments within this epic comedy that do indeed inspire such a reaction. Here, Damon – playing a fallen angel named Loki – proceeds to take a leisurely stroll through an airport and, in one brief conversation, casually destroy everything this poor nun has ever believed in. Why? “I just love to fuck with the clergy,” he says. “I love to keep those guys on their toes.”

3. Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (2001): It’s not quite on the level of Buck Henry pitching a sequel to “The Graduate,” but watching Gus Van Sant counting his money as he makes “Good Will Hunting 2: Hunting Season” is still pretty funny.

4. Will and Grace (2002): This is the only inclusion on the list without a clip to accompany it, but we couldn’t very well ignore it. Damon plays Owen, who’s competing against Jack for a spot in the New York Gay Men’s Chorus…except that Owen isn’t gay. He just wants the all-expenses-paid trip to Europe for the summer. Jack’s onto his game, but to get Owen to confirm his heterosexuality, he turns to Grace. The episode is worth it just for Damon’s performance as he tries to figure out a way to get the best of both worlds. “Whoops, my hand seems to be traveling up your thigh towards your rockin’ ass,” he says to Grace. “But who cares, right? ‘Cause I’m gay. So it’s all right if I tell you you’re beautiful, throw you down on this couch, and make out with you fiercely, right?” Riiiiiiight.

5. Stuck On You (2003): For as funny as Damon can be, he’s generally pegged as an action guy nowadays, so it’s nice to be able to look back at his one full-fledged comedy once in awhile. “Stuck on You” may not be the Farrelly Brothers’ best work, but don’t tell me you weren’t at least a little bit curious when you first heard that they were going to be making a movie in which Matt Damon and Greg Kinnear play Siamese twins.

6. Eurotrip (2004): No, it’s not really Damon singing “Scotty Doesn’t Know” – it’s actually a song by the band Lustra, and you can find it on their 2006 album Left for Dead – but that doesn’t make the song’s lyrics any less funny.

7. Jimmy Kimmel Live! (2006): Longtime viewers of this show may recall Kimmel’s recurring end-of-show apologies to Damon, who was – we were supposed to believe – forever scheduled to appear but always being bumped because they’d run out of time. In 2006, however, they finally managed to squeeze him in…almost.

8. The Late Show with David Letterman (2006): Not that it’s so hard to do a Matthew McConaughey impression – hell, even *I* do one – but Damon really nails it here, especially at the very end.

9. CBS News RAW (2008): In fairness, it’s possible that Democrats will find Damon’s comments about Sarah Palin funnier than Republicans will, but, c’mon, anyone can appreciate the humor in his description of her candidacy as being like a really bad Disney movie. “‘I’m just a hockey mom, I’m from Alaska,’ and she’s the President, and it’s, like, she’s facing down Vladimir Putin and using the folksy stuff she learned at the hockey rink!” I’d pay to see that film. Well, a matinee, anyway.

10. Jimmy Kimmel Live! (2008): You knew it was coming. In fact, you probably thought that’s what that last “Kimmel” clip was going to be. At last, here’s what you’ve all been waiting for…

11. Entourage (2009): See, this is what happens if you don’t stick around ’til after the closing credits: you miss awesome moments like this one.

12. The Late Show with David Letterman (2009): I question the veracity of this story, but I laughed at it, anyway.

13. Jimmy Kimmel Live! (2009): How about another round of applause for Jimmy Kimmel, ladies and gentlemen? The man never fails to bring out the funny in Damon, and this behind-the-scenes look at the making of “The Informant!” keeps their collaborative winning streak going.

[VIDEO REMOVED]

14. National Lampoon’s The Zaz (2009): National Lampoon hasn’t automatically equaled “funny” in a very long time, with their straight-to-DVD “comedies” (I use the word very loosely) doing no end of damage to the reputation of the institution that gave us “Animal House” and “Vacation,” but I have to admit that the schtick of superfan Matt Zaller made me laugh, particularly the way he pays tribute to Damon in song.

15. Team America: World Police (2004): Although you probably noticed that the rest of our list is chronological, we saved this one for last because it’s the only one on our list that doesn’t actually involve Matt Damon personally, but it was too funny to leave off altogether. There seems to be some uncertainty about whether it was Trey Parker or Matt Stone who provided the voice of Damon’s marionette likeness in this cult classic, but given the limited dialogue, it hardly matters.