Well, it’s better then the film version of Super Mario Bros. But that’s not saying much.
What is going on in Hollywood where someone pays filmmakers 150 million bucks to make Warcraft, an effects heavy mess based on a video game that isn’t really popular anymore. 5 or 10 years ago I could have seen this being relevant. But now? In the shadow of movies like The Hobbit or the Narina series and with television as good as Game of Thrones, this is nothing but a loud excuse to capitalize on the publics need for entertainment that is epic, loud and violent (this in a PG-13 way). There have been good examples for sure but Warcraft is not one of them. The sad part is that this was directed by a filmmaker who has made two really good movies. Duncan Jones, director of Moon and Source Code, has made a visually arresting but completely incoherent and boring movie.
To whoever cares, the plot revolves around the fate of the human realm of Azeroth. A race of huge, warrior ORCS are looking to escape their dying land until the orc wizard Gul’dan opens a portal to the human world. Gul’dan organizes all the orc clans into an army called the Horde to conquer the realm. The humans, led by King Llane (Dominc Cooper), the warrior Anduin Lothar (Vikings star Travis Fimmel) and the powerful wizard Medivh (Ben Foster) must fight to protect their world. Maybe gamers will like it but it’s really nothing we haven’t seen before. There isn’t one spark of originality in this film. It’s big battles and endless speechifying that just sucks the life and time out of the audience.
I’ll give it to Fimmel, who is the true star of the film. He has charisma to burn and it’s too bad its surrounded by endless CG monsters and environments. Everyone else is going through the motions. The actors providing the voices and motion capture for the orcs do fairly good Andy Serkis style work. And for the most part, the effects are very well rendered. I find it just — soulless. Never once did I care for anyone in this film. I think everyone was so intent on making it look good that no one cared to make feel good. A big miss.
