Warcraft: the beginning - a review

Talk about a long time coming for a movie. I've known about this upcoming Warcraft film for over five years now. Heck, I've quit my World of Warcraft account, restarted and quit my account again three times during the production of this movie ("Undercity rules!").

But now that it's finally here, what can I say about it? Let’s start by summarizing the plot:

The homeworld of the tribal race of orcs is dying. By using a lifeforce-fulled portal a warband makes its way to the peaceful realm of men: Azeroth. There the evil leaders of the orcs hatch the plan to enslave human to fuel a new portal to ensure the rest of the orc race to travel to this new world. Needless to say, mankind isn't very pleased about this. But so are some orcs who see the destruction and the danger behind what the evil orcs bring. Can men and orc fight together to destroy this villainy?

The Horde will rise!

So what did I think about it? In one sentence: Warcraft is a highly entertaining but uneven film.

Computergame movies are a tricky bunch.The massive list of failed adaptations shows just how easily it can go wrong. Now, as an introduction, I'm not going to tackle all the possible reasons, just one. How close does a game movie need to be to the original visual design of the original game?

The first Lara Croft movie copied almost everything from A to Z and still it wasn't a good movie. Whilst the infamous Super Mario Bros wasn't even in the same room of the original game and still...well. It's a balance to strike. And if you get the balance right you get something like (cult) classics as Silent Hill, Resident Evil and, of course, "Get over here"-Mortal Kombat.

Is Warcraft one of the better computer game movies? Most definitely! But there are quite a few nitpicking points that, when you add them all up, hurt the film. I'm just going to sum them up quickly to get them out of the way first.

1. The amount of CGI, you either like it or hate it.

I'm usually not too bothered by computer graphics in movies. I mean, George Lucas definitely overdid it in his Star Wars prequels but at the same time I actually enjoyed the graphics of the silly mess of a movie called Dungeons and Dragons.

Warcraft, however, is covered head to toe in CGI and at times during the movie even I thought it was a bit distractingly much.

The fact that this movie was shot in Vancouver and casted lesser known actors/no big celeb-names shows how much of the massive budget went to the computer graphics department.

2. An uneven balance in the violence.

At one moment the violence in the movie is perfectly PG-13. Then, without warning heads get crushed and green blood splatters everywhere. Now, I've seen my share of horror movies so I might be a little overprotective to the -to me- sensitive viewers. But even I was a bit shocked by this sudden shift in gear from Care Bears to Game of Thrones.

3. An uneven balance in the humor.

The first hour of the movie the tone is dreadfully grim and serious (in stark contrast to the colorful armor the men folk are wearing). Then, near the end of the film, it suddenly starts cracking jokes in the ol' fashioned buddy movies fashion. Like two halves of two very different scripts had been glued together. Again unbalanced.

4. Too many unneeded plotlines.

Then there's to overcomplicated plot. In Kingdom of the Crystal Skull-fashion Warcraft has one or two character that change sides back and forth. Very annoying and very unneeded.

Then there are unnecessary deaths to give a character some additional motivation that he/she doesn't really need (there's a big freaking orc threatening your kingdom -How much motivation do you need?).

One of the most humorous (sorry, but it is!) deaths has a character being chased. He/she drops the sword. Does something; only to get stabbed by said sword by the chaser. Why drop it in the first place?

I must say that I’m still a bit on the fence about that ‘half-orc-half-human’ character and the unavoidable love story that comes with her. But that’s fine. It’s just that, like Harry Potter’s half-giant Hagrid, my mind starts boggling about how that would happen?

Anyway, all those little added strands of storyline makes the movie feel bloated (what's up with that big black cube?). Shave it off a bit and Warcraft would have been a great start to a franchise.

One a side note: I did like the ambiguity of who the traitor was. However, it's never fun to have the hero suspecting somebody and finding out that he is right. Where's the twist in that? But then again, it wasn't entirely annoying.

5. Booo

Booo, no forsaken (or trolls, Tauren and Goblins for that matter - but I did hear the distinct call of those pesky merpeople the Murlac).

The Alliance will fight!

But as I said before: Warcraft is a fun movie! A true summer blockbuster aimed directly at the heartstrings of the fourteen year old boys (and ask any woman, we men hardly ever truly grow up.) and of course the gamers. But, I sense, more the players of World of Warcraft than the previous strategy games.

So the script is pretty straightforward with some unneeded additional storylines, but that's fine (just unbalances the whole a bit). How about the visuals then? The battles look great if you, once again, accept the CGI overkill. But, truly a bit uninspired. You cannot help but compare it to Peter Jackson's Lord of the rings. And even on a bad day (the Hobbit-trilogy) he still concocted far better fighting sequences.

So, to summarize, Warcraft is a great start of a franchise. Not perfect. But as a game-movie in no way mediocre. It's a leave-your-brain-at-the-door-kind of movie that gives you what you want: men fighting orcs. The best comparison I can give is the Underworld movies - still going strong.

Hopefully, in the next parts they streamline the script a bit more, inject some true mythology of the series ("What are you doing?" "Succeeding you!") and cut back a bit on the CGI overkill. Warcraft, not perfect, but quite a good time at the movies.