You would think that this story strand would form the core backbone of the movie. There are some notions of a wise human ruler (Travis Fimmel) teaming with a respected Orc clan leader (Toby Kebbell) to prevent mutually assured destruction. And they are mostly elementary "big dudes with swords swing at each other" face-offs.īoiled down to its basest elements, Warcraft concerns the realm of men who are attacked by gigantic orcs from another world. You may understand what is happening most of the time, but you'll rarely know "why" because the rules change almost shot-by-shot. While the moments of action, fewer in number and shorter in running time than you’d expect, are grand and occasionally ambitious, they fail to engage our emotions because they are rooted in the same arbitrary plotting that crushes the film as a whole. The plot itself never stops bouncing to and fro. But, since they aren't terribly interesting, you won't care. The movie takes nearly an hour to get to a point where you are relatively sure of who the principal players are and how they relate to everyone else. No, I shouldn’t have to in order to appreciate or even understand this filmed version. No, I have not played the video game on which this film is based. Well, to be fair, the last thirty minutes is almost entirely dedicated to setting up the sequels that we will likely never get. There is very little forward momentum and much of the 123-minute running time is spent on establishing the world in which it exists. But the characters are thin while the plot bounces around seemingly at random. The film is a visual marvel to be sure, with vividly realized creatures and periodic moments of spectacular battle. It's like the Nightwatch of video game adaptations. Warcraft is a rather shocking misfire, a jumbled and narratively wonky bit of would-be fantasy world-building that is darn near impenetrable to anyone not deeply entrenched in its source material. But if audiences react to the film the way most critics have thus far, it may also be the newest member of the “Okay, so the original made money, but the sequel won’t.” club. Along with the wholly original Gods of Egypt (R.I.P.) and Fox’s Christmas release of Assassin’s Creed (also a video game adaptation), this is the only remotely big-budget “original” in the sense that it’s not a sequel, prequel, remake, or reboot of a property that has been seen in cinemas before.įor that reason alone, I hope it ends up working out for all parties. The other thing of note, and this is a drum I’ve been beating for a while, is that it’s one of the only big-budget would-be franchise starters that's a “new to cinema” brand. Oh, and it’s yet another attempt to snag a winning A-level franchise from a video game. Hence, this is director Duncan Jones’ first movie in five years and only his third in the seven years since he popped up onto the scene with the Sam Rockwell outer-space drama Moon. First of all, it’s been in some active production/development for several years. The movie stands out for a couple of reasons.
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