Warcraft

2016 man…

It was a year of such potential. A lot of movies were supposed to come out that were expected to be great and ended up really not being that good. But not only that, we had such high expectations for 2016. Batman v Superman was supposed to jump start the DC cinematic universe and instead we're still hoping for Wonder Woman to come in and make it all better. More pressingly, we thought that this was going to be the year for video game movies.

If you don’t know, video game movies have traditionally ranged from mediocre to horrible and there has never really been a good one. The closest thing we’ve ever gotten was a shitty Mortal Kombat film back in 1995 and that was more just entertaining than good. And part of the reason this was a thing was because studios don’t feel like it’s worth giving a big budget to a movie that will only appeal not only to a small audience who play video games, but a smaller audience who play that particular video game. 

But that seemed to change when we heard about the movies I will be reviewing for the next two posts. I had a bit of a double feature last night where I went to go see Assassin's Creed and then rented Warcraft and watched them both. I wanted to get the video game movies of 2016 out of the way finally and see if they finally were the good ones we hoped they would be. 

I'm going to start with Warcraft because it came out earlier in 2016 but I do want to give a disclaimer on my bias. I have not played Warcraft. I tried it for a very short time and couldn't really get into it. I know nothing about the lore and I know very little to nothing about the world this movie is set in. I'll talk about this more in my Assassins Creed review but in comparison, I have played a good amount of Assassin's Creed and while it's a franchise I've really gotten bored of gameplay-wise, I know more about that game than Warcraft. 

I'm going to try and review both films with an open mind and see them as much as I can with the general movie going audience lens. That will probably be more apparent with Warcraft then Assassin's Creed. But this gives me a perspective of someone who would go into this film not knowing anything about the game and if the movie appeals to that audience. 

But enough intro, let's talk about Warcraft. 

Warcraft takes place in a fantasy realm called Azeroth. I know this mainly because I have a little bit of knowledge of World of Warcraft and I read it in the Wikipedia page. In another realm, one populated by Orcs, the population of orcs is making a portal into Azeroth because their land is dead and they can no longer live there. One of the clans of Orcs are being led by an Orc named Durotan (voiced by Toby Kebbell) and while he wants to save the orcs from their destruction in their old world, he has become suspicious of the wizard orc (voiced by Daniel Wu) in charge of this group for the magic that he uses because it's green and I guess that means it's bad. 

On the other side in Azeroth, they start getting reports of their villages being attacked by strange creatures they haven't seen before. The King (played by Dominic Cooper) tasks his military

commander Anduin Lothar (played by Travis Fimmel) to go out and find these creatures. Lothar is joined by a young mage (played by Ben Schnetzer) and an older mage who is supposed to be the Guardian of this kingdom (played by Ben Foster) and they go off and end up skirmishing with the orcs. 

From that skirmish they take captive a half orc by the name of Garona (played by Paula Patton) and they eventually figure out that there's a lot more orcs coming across this portal. Durotan seems to be the only one who wants to garner peace and the movie is mainly the two factions having this Cold War until they either accomplish peace, or start an all out war. 

Now I hope that I could make that make at least a little bit of sense because I'll be honest, a lot of that I got from reading the Wikipedia page after I finished the movie because I had absolutely no idea

what I had just watched. This is a very dense movie. There are a lot of names you won't remember, factions you won't recognize, and mystical terms you won't know. Like apparently green magic is bad and blue magic is good. I mean you can kind of infer some stuff but there is so much going on in this movie and so many things to know in order to understand the story that it makes it very difficult to follow and very difficult to really relate to the characters and understand the conflict they're having. 

It's a good thing that the plot didn't deviate too much from the plot that was advertised... at least I don't think it did. The trailers made it pretty clear that this was going to be an initial interaction between the orcs and the humans and both sides would try and stop a war from happening. I didn't know that this was a prequel to the actual video games, and I didn't know that these characters are apparently in the history and lore of the games as well. 

As far as performances go, this movie has a similar issue that Seventh Son had. Everything played so straight and there's no accessibility for the audience. But on top of that, the acting is so wooden and nobody seems to care enough to really provide that bridge for the audience to give a hoot. And similarly to Seventh Son, Warcraft actually has a decent cast as well. Ben Foster is in this movie but he looks bored as hell, and everyone else just looks too clean cut and looks like they're from 2016 being thrown into a movie set in a fantasy world. 

And my god, Travis Fimmel is a bad actor. Maybe he just wasn't given much direction but I did not give a shit about this character but I wasn't totally convinced that he gave a shit.

This might be a spoiler but I have to say it because it was so bad. There's a part where Lothar (Fimmel) is fighting these orcs and his son, who is in the military as well tells him to go protect the king or something and he goes fighting the orcs. But he falls on the wrong side of a barrier that was created to protect the king and he's surrounded by orcs. Of course, his son dies and Lothar sees it all, and what does he do? He just stands there. No reaction, no real tears or anything to make me think that he's actually struck by this death, he just stares. And again, maybe Fimmel got bad direction from Duncan Jones. But this was just an example of shitty acting alongside a convoluted script and just not enough effort put in to make me care. 

Now I do want to talk about the orcs because the dual story line is an interesting take and it does point out that one side is not 100% evil and one side is not 100% good. There is a mixture of both in this movie. I thought the storyline with Durotan was interesting enough and while he wasn't exactly the most interesting character, he was probably the best good guy out of everyone in this movie. 

The problem with the Orcs is more the CGI and the cartoon nature of them. While I thought the motion capture was good, the orcs looks more like cartoons as opposed to looking real and it really caused a divide in the level of how much I cared for these orcs. 

To be fair, the character design of the orcs is pretty faithful to the design originally done in the game. But that again is a problem because the game had a very cartoon-like design and that doesn't translate as well onto the big screen. And this isn't just about the orcs, it's about the armor design, the sets, and the creatures. Everything is so cartoonish and sure it's faithful to the game, but everyone is playing it so straight that again, there is no bridge for the audience to be brought into this world and there's no bridge for the audience to relate. 

The only orc character I actually kind of was interested in was Paula Patton's character. As a half orc she's not really accepted in either world and she's trying to find acceptance somewhere. And while Patton does look a little bit ridiculous with the makeup and fangs used to try and make her look like a half orc, she does a decent acting job and made me care at least a little bit. Unfortunately, she's bogged down by a romance that didn't need to happen and a really convoluted story line that took away from her intrigue.

The last thing I'll mention is the action. It was done well. I don't think it was anything to write home about but at the very least, Warcraft is something with bright colors and a good amount of action to keep you entertained for the two hours of convoluted story.

Now while the domestic box office income of Warcraft was laughable, the international markets, for some reason or another, ate this shit up. Now this might mean that there will be a sequel to the film but I really could care less. The only reason I would care about a sequel being made for this film is if it opened up the flood gates for better video game properties to be made in the future. But from a story perspective, I don't see this story going anywhere and I don't really care.

Overall, a lot of work was put into Warcraft, just not enough. 

Again, I need to go back to my thoughts on the original Lord of the Rings trilogy, a trilogy that probably shouldn't have worked but had the budget, had the effects, had the talent, had the direction, and had the right amount of effort to invite a massive audience, not just the people who read the books, into a world that will take a lot of suspension of belief, but is able to make that world accessible. The world of Seventh Son wasn't accessible, and neither is Warcraft. 

If you played the Warcraft games you might enjoy this film, but overall, it was too convoluted, not enough effort was put into it, and it just wasn't entertaining enough. 

But those are my thoughts on Warcraft. What did you think? Do you agree? Did Warcraft meet the expectations everyone wanted it to? I personally don't think so but comment and discuss below and let me know your thoughts. You can also share with me on Twitter @cmhaugen24 as well as send me your requests for films I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog. 

I'll leave you with this. If you're like me and you don't know a whole lot about the Warcraft series, this is actually a pretty good overview of the franchise. There's probably still a lot I don't know about but this is a good representation of the evolution of the games. Enjoy!