SPOILERS ALERT (indicated below)

CGI fest with poor script and direction or you can say that there is a lot of money thrown on this without any result. There is some good movie underlying under this but it seems the content is too overwhelming for writers. Duncan Jones does a passable job as a director, the movie lacks any energy and struggles with pace.

A good introduction to the world would have been nice for non-game players instead we get just one line and then a slew of characters are introduced. Not only that you are introduced to similar looking worlds with just different inhabitants, no introduction to villain some green power hungry idiot (Gulda or Guldan) who uses life energy to transport inhabitants from Ogre world to humans world, I think even the script is confused whom to place as central villain.

Spoilers from here on:
Anyways after all the characters are introduced we follow Patton's character and her capture. No real explanation is given on character motivations (like why is the queen serving this monster and being nice to her, specially when the first thing Patton says is "I can kill you before your mate reaches here"), more bizarre is her motivation to switch sides with humans and for no reason we are supposed to believe the attraction between the leads. The ogres in the meantime have collected humans (but not enough) to use them as fuel to open portal for rest of the ogres to come into human world.

The second half is the most eventful but as is the problem everywhere none of the scenes are given importance other than setting-up a current or next fight. The truce that is supposed to be headed by the chieftan (the muscled CGI hulk from trailers probably called Duotan or something) is failed and during this an important character dies to setup the final fight. Somehow the guardian/Mediv has turned bad, I really don't how this developed, anyone knows something?? In the ogre tribe the chieftan saves other ogres from the Gulda but later gets furious and sends chieftans right hand man to kill rest of his village people. Some betrayal and savior later there is a mild turmoil among ogres.

The final act is about closing the portal as the Mediv has somehow turned green he can now open portal and this Guldah has no need to do that (whatever that means). Duotan challenges Guldah and the later sucks his life. There is a big battle in field and the race to stop Mediv who resurrects a Frozen type clay monster (what the hell??) for his protection. The final battle happens and the human king on the verge of loss asks Patton's character to kill him and become ogre hero, later she can unite ogres and humans. After defeating Mediv, Fimmel's character flies on a bird (heavily seen in trailers) and tries to kill the entire ogre army himself and take the kings body. The bird is caught while taking off and then there is a final battle scene between an enhanced ogre and him (also shown in trailers) which ends in a single strike.

No More Spoilers:
I have never scene a big budget mess like this but it could also be because I don't know the game/arc. The movie was always in your face with new things but none of them making sense. The coolest stuff was the blue wizard side story which while underdeveloped is always cool to look at. The visuals are weird but you kinda get used to it (took me 15 minutes). Patton and Fimmel are good and they both try hard but I highly doubt anyone could have saved this mess.

[I've never played the game or even googled what is the story. Neither do I know any of my friends who played the game]

3/10

Great visuals aside this was a fucking mess. Just a mash up of scenes not edited together in a cohesive way at all. It literally felt like fan service the whole time and for a causal goer I don't believe that's a good thing. I may not be a WOW fan, but I do enjoy a good fantasy film and whether or not your a fan of the games I don't see how anyone won't find this boring/hollow. The only thing I actually liked about it was Durotan as the Orc stuff is the strongest aspect of the movie, but then you get to the human characters and it all goes to shit. I like Dominic Cooper and Ruth Negga alot in Preacher, but they had to be the most uninteresting King and Queen ever. Paula Patton was kinda interesting, but what they end up doing to her character is pretty ridiculous. Didn't care for the bland leading guy here and thought he was even worse than Charlie Hunnam in Pacific Rim. Ben Foster was terribly miscast and the guy who played his protege was horrible. The action sequences are well filmed and somewhat exciting, but it's nothing you haven't seen before either. I was really surprised at how violent it got at times too.

Warcraft is a serious war movie in the sword and sorcery genre. Less humor than perhaps any other blockbuster before it, and it serves it well. A sober-minded telling of an alternative history. I'm looking forward to the sequels. *B+*

I think I'd puke a better a film

tree is that really your score? Did you play the games before or know about the universe? B+ from a person who sees so many movies seems really surprising but I'm glad you liked it.

I do find it fascinating that a movie can make so much death feel meaningless. I mean what was the purpose of Durotan's death because it added nothing to the story ? Also, the death of the lead guy's kid landed with the biggest thud of all.

Yes.

No & no.

Thank-you for the well-wishes Jack Sparrow! So often these days, movie consumers can only sustain their own opinion if they can browbeat everyone into agreeing with them. It's refreshing to hear someone acknowledge another's enjoyment of a film that they themselves disliked. I'm a fan of the old school fantasy movies like Jason and the Argonauts (see: Gods of Egypt). Ray Harryhausen would have thought he'd died and gone to heaven if he had the tools Duncan Jones team have at their disposal. Usually I'm a fan of a camp approach to this type of material, but the serious tone of Warcraft worked great for me. I only graded it a *B+* because I would have liked a bit more exposition of the story at the beginning to get better oriented to the world before the main events take place.This review comes closest to my take on the movie. I've enjoyed all three of Duncan Jones films so far.

Warcraft, the first live-action film adaptation of the beloved 22-year-old video-game franchise, is an astounding disaster. I honestly have zero investment in the game, which I have never played, but this is a dispiriting turn for director Duncan Jones after a science-fiction masterpiece (Moon) and an exciting, focused second film (Source Code). It is hard to find any element to praise in Warcraft, a lumbering and frequently disjointed story of an ogre war party's incursion into a medieval human realm. One could perhaps strain to praise the sheer scope of the project, but rare is the chasm dividing quality and quantity so vast. There is a great deal going on here, and most of it is very ugly. Consider the surplus of mind-numbing action of the people-shooting-blue-and-green-energy-at-one-another variety. Or consider the ogres, decidedly hideous motion-capture malfunctions with cartoon under-bites who never feel part of any organic environment. As for the storytelling, it ranges from simplistic and soporific (the themes) to confusing (the jargon), and not a single character is well-developed or intriguing: people (and ogres) live, die, fall in love, sacrifice, switch allegiances, travel between worlds, etc., but none of it is more than noise and franchise table laying. A popular early comparison is Battlefield Earth, but I sense much more verve (or insanity, depending on how charitable one wishes to be John Travolta and his galactic-confederacy faith) in the Dutch-angled, vomitorium-tinted 2000 heir to Plan 9 from Outer Space. A more apt comparison might be the deadly dull franchise nonstarter Eragon, but with a meaner spirit, a longer running time, and arguably double the pompous, po-faced sense of faux-import. Do not let anyone tell you it is so bad it's good.

F

I guess you are a huge fan for fantasy movies and with not-so-many great ones coming out Warcraft is a good option. Actually one of very close friends also belong to your category but then he only sees fantasy movies in general. I loved the previous two projects of Duncan Jones (Moon and Source Code) but Warcraft is a hot mess.

Oops, I meant orcs in my post above, not ogres.

While I agree with some of your points I just can't see how the movie was clear in its narration, specially when the character motivations change from scene to scene.

Poor characterization/storytelling but I kinda liked it.

As I mentioned above, I'm not familiar with the source material. However with the ending scenes, Jones clearly seems to be setting up the sequel as Warcraft's take on The Ten Commandments.



If that's the case, then just:

Wouldn't their baby be evil since he was given life by "the fel"?

Can you explain the Glenn Close character? I found this bit particularly mystifying. She seemed sinister to me, but I guess she helped the heroes by confirming the Ben Foster character's fel-induced treachery.

Wait the Orcs have bloodlust? I thought they wanted to conquer the humans world because their world is dying.

It's a bad movie for sure, but there's enough fan service in here for me to enjoy it. I was worried that I'd feel the same as I did walking out of Last Airbender and Warcraft at least avoided that.

After a nice opening that "humanizes" Durotan and the Frostwolf Clan, we hit some very rough. All this plot dumping is uncomfortable and I imagine most people weren't able to come back from this. Lothar and the humans are also quite boring compared to the conflict among the orcs. Yet this is also when we get to see Ironforge, Stormwind and even a random Murlock! Terrible storytelling, but solid world building. The middle section of the film is what I wanted all along and the meeting at Blackrock Mountain (I think?) was actually a pretty good scene. It's unfortunate that it has almost no bearing on the story about ten minutes as Durotan and the rest of the Frostwolfs are pointlessly killed.

The finale has some exciting fantasy action. I wish I understood Medivh's motives for turning to the fel in the first place. It almost seems like he wants to bring Paula Patton's mother over, but that plot thread is never followed up on and he just goes full evil instead. Neither the human or orc storylines get any closure as it sets up for Thrall's rise in a sequel that may never come.

So it is a huge mess but still somehow a relief. I guess that is the benefit of rock bottom expectations.

I agree with Flava'd. It's bad but as a fan of the source material, I managed to find some enjoyment here since they didn't butcher it (Last Airbender...). I'm game for any sequel/franchise.

Warcraft

While I didn't love it, I was pleasantly surprised at how bad it wasn't. It had great visual effects. The Orc story was much more engrossing than the human one, which just felt like a Game of Thrones episode with all the actors perfectly groomed and well-spoken. I don't believe it in any of these mythological/fantasy films where all the actors are British, super clean, with Royal-esque table manners. It's ridiculous. They should be dirty, like savages, and have accents where you can hardly understand them. But the Orcs were fantastic actually. Fantastic in how much Jones made it a 50/50 narrative, too. It wasn't just a human-triumphs-all story, and that was refreshing.

The acting in the film was to be expected. Ben Foster was dull, but Toby Kebbell did a good job as Durotan. But Travis Fimmel (AKA: the poor man's Channing Tatum) was awful. And I hated how they tried to shoehorn in some one liners, which pretty much fell flat. The film was strange really because with all the good people dying and the demon Orc not dying, it kind of seemed like the bad guys won. I don't know for sure, but that is how it felt. I didn't get involved in the film at all, though it wasn't a bore that's for sure. I wasn't aware of the mythology behind the film, which was a bit of an issue. I mean, I didn't have a problem understanding the story of the film, just the rules of the universe were a bit hard to pick up, and thus somewhat alienating. And then in the middle of the film there were a bunch of double-crosses which I couldn't keep track of, so the overall edit wasn't great. Are there two sets of Orc? Some slightly brown ones and then some green ones, or are they all just Orcs?

I feel there wasn't any need to make a film of World of Warcraft. Oh, the little Orc baby was adorable.

C

It was fairly entertaining, I liked how the Warcraft universe was introduced and we got to know several characters. The plot itself didn't interest me at all though, and it had a pretty deflating ending for me as well. So the first hour I enjoyed quite a lot, but after that it became more boring as it went a long. The CGI looks good, and some of the battle scenes are cool, but other than that it just has the mythology going for it, and since I didnt care for that, it comes as around average for me.

C+

Oh, and I was quite annoyed how this film has SIX studio logos before the film begins. At the fourth I was like "Ok, this must be the last one now", but still another one came!

There were only three in the U.S.: Universal, Legendary, and the video-game company, Blizzard.

Yeah, the other three here were Chinese companies. Universal, then two Chinese companies, then Legendary, then another Chinese company, and then Blizzard.

So it is true. If you are not a fan, you better steer clear. I watched it yesterday and none of it made any sense to me. Terrible film.