REVIEW: Warcraft

The movie is based off of a video game of the same name, or it could be based off of the video game World of Warcraft.  I have seen debate on gaming forums as to which is most true, but it seems to be that most people feel it is based off of the hugely successful World of Warcraft.  The player base for that game peaked in 2010, making the film six years late to the party.

The world of orcs is no falling apart and is not longer habitable.  It's a shame, really.  This means there needs to be a new land to travel to and claim as their home.  That's bad news for the humans of Azeroth, as they seem quite happy to be living in peace.  It is also bad news for all the poor bastards who are imprisoned by the orcs, as their souls are used to create the portal needed for the orcs to travel to Azeroth.  It sounds like those damned orcs only care about themselves.

A war party of orcs is sent through the portal to capture humans to fuel the 'fell' (the dark magic power used by the orc leader Gul'dan) in order to open the portal a second time to bring the rest of the orcs through into Azeroth.  It is quite reasonable to believe that this plan does not sit well with the humans, who rely on the leadership of King Llane (Dominic Cooper), the mighty warrior Sir Lothar (Travis Fimmel), and the guardian Midivh (Ben Foster), who is a very powerful magic user and protector.

What does this all lead to?  Well, it leads to a story with an exorbitant amount of alliances made and broken, as well as one of battle, blood, and anguished faces.  Thrown into the mix is Garona (Paula Patton) who is a half breed orc that is captured by the humans and finds her allegiances challenged.  There are a lot of players involved in this movie, I haven't even mentioned the main orc Durotan (Toby Tebbell) or magic user Khadgar (Ben Schnetzer).  With so many key members of the cast, there is a lot of ground to cover in showing why each is important and motivated.  This does not do well at keeping the pace of the film clipping along in the realm of completely enjoyable.

The story itself feels like nothing new, but director Duncan Jones and fellow script writer Charles Leavitt do something that a lot of films are too afraid of when it comes to movie making - they are not ashamed of killing major characters.  This addition into the story, and the fact that it clearly becomes and introductory piece to what is a hopeful franchise (the title has just now been changed to Warcraft: The Beginning), allowed me to still predict how it would end but with no idea as to who would survive.  Predictability along with doubt is the best thing that this movie offers.  That being said, there were certain characters that the audience knew would not be killed.

Being a huge fan of Duncan Jones (Moon and Source Code), there was a certain level of expectation that followed me into this cinematic tale.  This is his first foray into a special effects fuelled spectacle, and there were times that sadly it felt like a really well done video game cinematic.  The visuals weren't awful, they just were not up to the standards that we have already seen set for 2016 from Jungle Book.

The action sequences were fun enough, with a no-holds-barred approach to showing people getting annihilated, something that most movies shy away from.  The unfortunate part is that these moments were scattered amongst some useless scenes that were over doing it with the bloated cast of characters.

In the end, it was just too much of 'already seen,' and it did not feel like a completely fresh product.  There have been many other fantasy films in the past, and the few things that this movie had going for it were not enough to elevate it above its contemporaries.  It is a fine movie, but that is about it.  Warcraft excels as a video game cut scene, but falls short of the quality and emotions needed for a tentpole flick.

Rating - 2.5 stars out of 4