Review: ‘Warcraft’

“Warcraft,” an adaptation of the hugely popular “World of Warcraft” video game series, is a big budget high fantasy movie that doesn’t have too much separating itself from other tales of men versus monsters with some magic thrown in for good measure. You can go through the fantasy movie template and check off the appropriate boxes – a battle versus good and evil, a giant winged beast, a world destroying MacGuffin, two armies charging at each other in an open field, it is all here, done up in a serviceable enough way to be entertaining but not bringing enough to the table to be compelling. Existing in that middle ground where ambivalence resides, the movie is packed with too much in two hours to be boring, but isn’t different or interesting enough to be truly interesting, “Warcraft” is a decent if inconsequential couple of hours.

Worth noting, for some reason this title has been shortened for its release here in the U.S., because in most markets around the world this film is called “Warcraft: The Beginning” and that is much more telling of what to expect from this movie. Because this is 100% a set up for more movies, itself a movie without a real ending, instead just setting up most characters and foreshadowing their futures, to be explored in possible sequels. And in this regard, this particular film is surely successful, as they did present an open ended story which they hope people will be wanting to revisit.

The movie starts with two scenes that only make sense after you watch the movie and have context for them. First there is a quick man versus orc fight while a voiceover explains that humans and orcs have been fighting longer than they can remember why, which means this whole movie is a flashback based on this moment, this is the beginning of why these two factions are at odds. The second scene establishes A LOT as it shows the orc race on a dying planet and one of their war parties going through a portal to another world and how this is done by some obviously evil magic called The Fel which has turned their leader into a glowing eyed weirdo and also there is this chieftain named Durotan (Toby Kebbell) who has a pregnant wife (mate? partner? Orcs believe in monogamy? And marriage? Where do they come down on homosexuality? So many questions.) and for some reason sneaks her into the war party and the passage through the portal induces birth in the preggo orc and their stillborn child is brought back to life by the orc leader and his dark magic. Didja get all that? Five minutes into the movie, all of this happens. Maybe less.

They eventually introduce us to the species that inhabits this world that the orcs intend to take over, and that species happens to be humans living in their Game of Thrones cosplay culture, all done up like knights and mages and whatnot, living in castles and shit, you know, doing human stuff, and the orcs raiding their villages for prisoners causes some friction, to say the least. The humans are ruled over by King Llane (Dominic Cooper) and his right hand man Lothar (Travis Fimmel), and there is also a half-human, half-orc lady (Paula Patton), and a wizard known as The Guardian (Ben Foster), and some other generic people like King’s Wife (Ruth Negga) and Young Wizard In Training (Ben Schnetzer). Lothar has a son who is a young soldier and he proclaims once “you are all I have” so you know where that one is going because you’ve seen a movie before. Just about everything that happens in this movie you will see coming before it happens, so the element of surprise is not an issue here. With the exception of one character, who eventually dies, everyone is as archetypal as possible, basic ciphers, placeholders who still need to be fleshed out into meaningful characters. Without that, “Warcraft” is a lot of whiz, bang and boom without very much backing it up.

That whiz, bang, boom is all top notch, though, as there is plenty of action and it is all quite well done. On a technical level, the fights involving these eight foot tall hulking creatures are quite impressive, though like all other visual effects like this, surely it will look more and more cartoonish as the movie ages and this kind of technology gets better and better. The facial work, on display in that second scene front and center, is really impressive because they convey a lot of realistic facial nuances and subtleties, though when the orcs share the screen with people, that uncanny valley in the vague differences between the two becomes more apparent. With a stronger and more compelling story, this all could have been utilized to make a really amazing fantasy movie, which makes this a bit of a shame. Just swapping out The One True Ring from “The Lord of the Rings” with an evil green magic isn’t enough.

Anyway, at least “Warcraft” isn’t terrible but it is nothing to get excited about, and if they never make any more of these and don’t continue the story threads that they started with this film, then I wouldn’t be disappointed.