Warcraft: The Beginning - directed by Duncan Jones
Screenplay: Duncan Jones & Charles Leavitt
Music Score by: Ramin Djawadi
Cinematography: Simon Duggan
Edited by: Paul Hirsch
Running Time: 123 minutes
Rated: M - Fantasy violence
At this point I don't know if "Warcraft: The Beginning" counts as a videogame movie or not.
Obviously it is based on one- and a pretty damned big one at that - but it doesn't seem to have been marketed as such or even reviewed as such.
Avoiding the film to movie adaptation stigma (well earned for the most part in most cases) hasn't done it too much good with critics regardless.
Reviews have been decidedly mixed and heavily leaning towards the negative.
But tellingly it opened to huge business in China where there is a huge Warcraft game fanbase.
It's $90,000,000 opening is testament to the loyalty of Warcraft players.
I had absolutely no expectations for this movie nor did I have any investment.
I have played the game for a grand total of about an hour and a bit.
That was eight or nine years ago if I recall.
I wouldn't know if the movie was slavishly bound to the game or if it veered wildly away from it and I couldn't care less either way.
It's refreshing to go into a movie with no chips on the table.
And maybe that is why I enjoyed it as much as I did.
I had heard that the story was difficult to follow but I found it perfectly simple.
Orcs are flooding into the kingdom of man through a portal from their dying world.
Raiding parties are wiping out villages and taking prisoners.
The evil Orc wizard Gul'dan is using the souls of these prisoners to power the portal.
An heroic Orc chieftain named Durotan realises that the power (the 'fel') that enables the portal is also destroying everything that it comes into contact with.
As a husband and new Father he turns against Gul'dan and seeks an alliance with humans in order to stop him.
Durotan's human counterpart is Anduin Lothar and Gul'dan's is the Guardian Medivh.
Somewhere between the two is a sort of half Orc woman named Garona whose allegiance is murky.
Now, this movie is not without its problems and one is probably immediately obvious from the preceding four or five sentences.
The names of the main characters are horrifically confusing and hard to remember.
I found myself subconsciously naming them things like Gandalf, Aragorn, Saruman and Arwen.
The debt to Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings movies doesn't end there either.
From very early on it is abundantly clear that director Duncan Jones has a visual style in mind.
Starting with a very stylishly shot one on one combat sequence filmed from slightly behind and to the right of an orc warrior as he circles around his human opponent it is a treat for the eyes.
There are several very impressive aerial shots - some featuring giant birds ridden by human characters and one memorable one has our view panning across the landscape to show a series of villages being sacked and burned.
It is all very reminisent of The Return of the King.
One shot even has a black walled canyon with a simmering volcano in the background a'la The Black Gate and Mount Doom.
And of course the wizardy spells of Medivh and his understudy Khadgar recall Gandalf warding off Ringwraiths and the large birds are a lot like the Eagles.
This is not to take anything away from Jones who has clearly directed the hell out of this thing.
There are some stunning sequences of action and landscape alike all emblazoned on the screen in very effective 3D.
I highly recommend seeing this movie on an IMAX screen in 3D if you can.
Also worthy of praise are a couple of performances.
Australian Travis Fimmel does a great job in the lead role of Anduin.
He plays him as a sort of Aragorn / Han Solo - equal parts honourable, loyal warrior and roguish loner.
I was also really impressed with Paula Patton as Garona.
She does bring to mind the similarly green tinted and named Gamora from "Guardians of the Galaxy" but via an expressive and often physical performance creates a character that is much more than the simple 'hot green chick' that it could easily have been were it Jones' (and Patton's) intention.
The romance angle is only half explored and I couldn't help but think that the logistics of a kissing scene with Garona's elongated canines were just too hard and the writers thought 'the hell with it- they can just gaze longingly at each other instead'.
Regardless of how successful this movie is in boosting the awful track record of game movies at the very least it deserves credit for trying really, really damned hard to.
The crew has some impressive (and appropriate) credits to their names.
Editor Paul Hirsch edited two Mission: Impossible movies, two Star Wars films (A New Hope and Empire) and "Planes Trains and Automobiles" as well as "Ferris Bueller's Day Off"
Director of Photography P Simon Duggan "300: Rise of an Empire", "The Great Gatsby" and "I, Robot"
The score is from Ramin Djawadi (Game of Thrones, Pacific Rim, Iron Man)
Visual Effects are handled by Industrial Light and Magic, Hybride and Rodeo FX
Click on any of those names to see what they have worked on - hugely impressive body of work for all.
So yes - this movie sounds and looks amazing.
More amazing even than its $160,000,000 budget would indicate.
But.... and there is a big one.
The story is lacking.
It's a very simple story which in itself is not a problem but the predictability is.
You should be able to spot every twist, every betrayal and most of the deaths from a mile away.
Many of the characters don't generate much in the way of sympathy and it is often hard to feel too much concern for them or even sadness when they depart.
Ben Foster as Medivh delivers his lines in a slow, wavering voice that makes the character sound like Andy Dick - never, ever a good thing.
Ruth Negga has far too little screen time for us to care too deeply about her and my only investment in Dominic Cooper's King Llane Wrynn was a familiarity and admiration for the actor - not the character.
"Warcraft: The Beginning" then is a very, very polished film and while never boring doesn't truly grab you in the manner that movie clearly intended to be a franchise starter needs to.
Ironically the very films that inspired it are also much of its undoing.
By recalling The Lord of the Rings movies so frequently it serves only to remind the viewer how much better those movies are at engaging an audience with beloved characters and a compelling story.
Warcraft is in no way even close to being a bad movie but it isn't able to create a world or characters that are likely to have audiences dying to see the next installment.
RATING: 70 / 100
CONCLUSION: A stunningly beautiful movie that entertains for all of its length without every truly grabbing hold of the viewer and making them care too much about the plight of the characters or worlds they inhabit.
Starring: Travis Fimmel, Paula Patton, Ben Foster, Dominic Cooper, Toby Kebbell, Clancy Brown, Daniel Wu, Ruth Negga, Robert Kazinsky, Ben Schnetzer, Anna Galvin, Callum Keith Rennie, Burkely Duffield, Ryan Robbins, Dean Redman, Terry Notary, Elena Wurlitzer, Dean Redman
Screenplay: Duncan Jones & Charles Leavitt
Music Score by: Ramin Djawadi
Cinematography: Simon Duggan
Edited by: Paul Hirsch
Running Time: 123 minutes
Rated: M - Fantasy violence
At this point I don't know if "Warcraft: The Beginning" counts as a videogame movie or not.
Obviously it is based on one- and a pretty damned big one at that - but it doesn't seem to have been marketed as such or even reviewed as such.
Avoiding the film to movie adaptation stigma (well earned for the most part in most cases) hasn't done it too much good with critics regardless.
Reviews have been decidedly mixed and heavily leaning towards the negative.
But tellingly it opened to huge business in China where there is a huge Warcraft game fanbase.
It's $90,000,000 opening is testament to the loyalty of Warcraft players.
I had absolutely no expectations for this movie nor did I have any investment.
I have played the game for a grand total of about an hour and a bit.
That was eight or nine years ago if I recall.
I wouldn't know if the movie was slavishly bound to the game or if it veered wildly away from it and I couldn't care less either way.
It's refreshing to go into a movie with no chips on the table.
And maybe that is why I enjoyed it as much as I did.
 |
| Paula Patton, Travis Fimmel and Toby Kebbell all turn in very good performances |
Orcs are flooding into the kingdom of man through a portal from their dying world.
Raiding parties are wiping out villages and taking prisoners.
The evil Orc wizard Gul'dan is using the souls of these prisoners to power the portal.
An heroic Orc chieftain named Durotan realises that the power (the 'fel') that enables the portal is also destroying everything that it comes into contact with.
As a husband and new Father he turns against Gul'dan and seeks an alliance with humans in order to stop him.
Durotan's human counterpart is Anduin Lothar and Gul'dan's is the Guardian Medivh.
Somewhere between the two is a sort of half Orc woman named Garona whose allegiance is murky.
Now, this movie is not without its problems and one is probably immediately obvious from the preceding four or five sentences.
The names of the main characters are horrifically confusing and hard to remember.
I found myself subconsciously naming them things like Gandalf, Aragorn, Saruman and Arwen.
The debt to Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings movies doesn't end there either.
From very early on it is abundantly clear that director Duncan Jones has a visual style in mind.
Starting with a very stylishly shot one on one combat sequence filmed from slightly behind and to the right of an orc warrior as he circles around his human opponent it is a treat for the eyes.
There are several very impressive aerial shots - some featuring giant birds ridden by human characters and one memorable one has our view panning across the landscape to show a series of villages being sacked and burned.
It is all very reminisent of The Return of the King.
One shot even has a black walled canyon with a simmering volcano in the background a'la The Black Gate and Mount Doom.
And of course the wizardy spells of Medivh and his understudy Khadgar recall Gandalf warding off Ringwraiths and the large birds are a lot like the Eagles.
This is not to take anything away from Jones who has clearly directed the hell out of this thing.
There are some stunning sequences of action and landscape alike all emblazoned on the screen in very effective 3D.
I highly recommend seeing this movie on an IMAX screen in 3D if you can.
 |
| Wizards, Wargs and Black Walls..... the influence of The Lord of the Rings movies is apparent |
Australian Travis Fimmel does a great job in the lead role of Anduin.
He plays him as a sort of Aragorn / Han Solo - equal parts honourable, loyal warrior and roguish loner.
I was also really impressed with Paula Patton as Garona.
She does bring to mind the similarly green tinted and named Gamora from "Guardians of the Galaxy" but via an expressive and often physical performance creates a character that is much more than the simple 'hot green chick' that it could easily have been were it Jones' (and Patton's) intention.
The romance angle is only half explored and I couldn't help but think that the logistics of a kissing scene with Garona's elongated canines were just too hard and the writers thought 'the hell with it- they can just gaze longingly at each other instead'.
Regardless of how successful this movie is in boosting the awful track record of game movies at the very least it deserves credit for trying really, really damned hard to.
The crew has some impressive (and appropriate) credits to their names.
Editor Paul Hirsch edited two Mission: Impossible movies, two Star Wars films (A New Hope and Empire) and "Planes Trains and Automobiles" as well as "Ferris Bueller's Day Off"
Director of Photography P Simon Duggan "300: Rise of an Empire", "The Great Gatsby" and "I, Robot"
The score is from Ramin Djawadi (Game of Thrones, Pacific Rim, Iron Man)
Visual Effects are handled by Industrial Light and Magic, Hybride and Rodeo FX
Click on any of those names to see what they have worked on - hugely impressive body of work for all.
So yes - this movie sounds and looks amazing.
More amazing even than its $160,000,000 budget would indicate.
 |
| The visuals are often exceptionally stunning |
The story is lacking.
It's a very simple story which in itself is not a problem but the predictability is.
You should be able to spot every twist, every betrayal and most of the deaths from a mile away.
Many of the characters don't generate much in the way of sympathy and it is often hard to feel too much concern for them or even sadness when they depart.
Ben Foster as Medivh delivers his lines in a slow, wavering voice that makes the character sound like Andy Dick - never, ever a good thing.
Ruth Negga has far too little screen time for us to care too deeply about her and my only investment in Dominic Cooper's King Llane Wrynn was a familiarity and admiration for the actor - not the character.
"Warcraft: The Beginning" then is a very, very polished film and while never boring doesn't truly grab you in the manner that movie clearly intended to be a franchise starter needs to.
Ironically the very films that inspired it are also much of its undoing.
By recalling The Lord of the Rings movies so frequently it serves only to remind the viewer how much better those movies are at engaging an audience with beloved characters and a compelling story.
Warcraft is in no way even close to being a bad movie but it isn't able to create a world or characters that are likely to have audiences dying to see the next installment.
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