Warcraft
Directed by: Duncan Jones
Written by: Duncan Jones and Charles Leavitt - Based on the story and characters by Chris Metzen
Starring: Travis Fimmel, Paula Patton, Ben Foster, Dominic Cooper, Tony Kebbell, Ben Schnetzer, Robert Kazinsky, Clancy Brown, Daniel Wu, Ruth Negga, Anna Galvin, Callum Keith Rennie
Action/Adventure/Fantasy - 123 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 8 June 2016
Written by: Duncan Jones and Charles Leavitt - Based on the story and characters by Chris Metzen
Starring: Travis Fimmel, Paula Patton, Ben Foster, Dominic Cooper, Tony Kebbell, Ben Schnetzer, Robert Kazinsky, Clancy Brown, Daniel Wu, Ruth Negga, Anna Galvin, Callum Keith Rennie
Action/Adventure/Fantasy - 123 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 8 June 2016
I have never played any version of Warcraft and cannot even tell you why it is called Warcraft. Stepping up to the plate in theaters as the next film based on a video game, following this year’s Ratchet & Clank and Angry Birds, we can categorize Warcraft as a fantasy film. Rather than technological gizmos and outer space adventures usually served up by video game movies, Warcraft has fighters and mages; it’s closest kin is probably The Lord of the Rings franchise. However, as hard as director Duncan Jones would like to match Peter Jackson’s trilogy which set the bar for the contemporary fantasy genre, Warcraft is more abrupt than nuanced.
Warcraft reminds me of fantasy films from the ‘70s and ‘80s, think The Sword and the Sorcerer, Krull, and the Conan franchise. Most of them were not intentional B-movies yet that is how current audiences perceive them; many are cult classics because they are humorous and campy. It’s not meant to get a laugh, but everyone nowadays smiles when Schwarzenegger mentions listening to “the lamentations of their women” in Conan the Barbarian. Warcraft nestles right in here with its castles, gate portals, and battles.
Warcraft reminds me of fantasy films from the ‘70s and ‘80s, think The Sword and the Sorcerer, Krull, and the Conan franchise. Most of them were not intentional B-movies yet that is how current audiences perceive them; many are cult classics because they are humorous and campy. It’s not meant to get a laugh, but everyone nowadays smiles when Schwarzenegger mentions listening to “the lamentations of their women” in Conan the Barbarian. Warcraft nestles right in here with its castles, gate portals, and battles.
As with any film based on such material, the audience is divided between those who do know not the first thing about Warcraft and sharp-eyed, die hard gamers on the look out for the slightest easter egg. According to Jones, the story occurs before the World of Warcraft online game following the first contact between the humans of Azeroth and the invading orc horde. There is little exposition setting us up in time or place; Jones opts instead to plunge right into the plot.
The orc horde decimated their home world with an evil magic, called the fell, and cross through a magic portal to take over Azeroth, a realm with what looks like vast resources. Our swashbuckling hero is Lothar (Travis Fimmel), the king’s right-hand man, the country’s best warrior, and a widower fearful for his only son’s safety as a low ranking soldier. A rogue mage, Khadgar (Ben Schnetzer, The Book Thief), with a past only hinted at where apparently he upset a bunch of people when he renounced some vows somewhere, figures out first there is evil afoot and plays third wheel the rest of the way until it’s his time to shine.
Unlike in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings world, just because you are ugly, does not mean you are evil. We naturally empathize with the smaller, weaker humans but the orcs are not pure evil, as the humans are not pure good either. Durotan (Tony Kebbell, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes) is a mid-grade orc chieftain who is the only one to notice the head orc’s use of the evil magic ruined their homeland and is already taking its toll on Azeroth. Gul-Dan (Daniel Wu), the green-eyes, hunched-over leader with tree limbs coming out of his back, comes off as an Emperor Palpatine figure after his use of the dark side of the force infected his appearance.
Azeroth comes with its own mage guardian, the powerful Medivh (Ben Foster, The Finest Hours). Medivh is adept at creating lightning storms and throwing fireballs, but becomes very weak after he does any of these things. King Llane Wrynn (Dominc Cooper, Need for Speed) must puzzle through whether to rely on warriors like Lothar, mages like Medivh, and gauge how much he can trust a half-orc, half-human prisoner, Garona (Paula Patton, About Last Night). Garona was an orc slave all of her life and aside from some suspect acting, is one of the more intriguing characters to follow.
This is a lot of story and a plenty of characters to chew on, but it’s called Warcraft for a reason. Orcs swing gigantic battle axes and clubs which squish men into the ground while the humans wield what must be thousand pound swords yet only the best fighters are able to kill an orc. They fight among gargantuan sets showing off towering cathedrals and dense forests yet see through the CGI and there is clearly a lot of sound stage work. As for the third dimension, it comes off neutral, neither detracting from nor particularly aiding the humans and orcs. Duncan Jones obviously wants Warcraft to spawn sequels as his story points down the road in multiple arcs. Warcraft has the look of a film most folks unfamiliar with will inherently mock and many reviewers will grumble at having to sit through it; however, I had a good time. Fantasy films do not come around very often and Warcraft is an opportunity to take a break from the superhero glut and relish a middle of the road escapade adventure like they used to make.
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