So I'm not a Warcraft guy at all but I remember when they announced they were officially starting production that a Warcraft movie could be cool. Some of the first promotional materials showed a lot of promise, but then with each trailer I got more and more discouraged. By the time the release came around I didn't plan on seeing it. However, a good friend of mine, who used to love WoW, had a spare ticket when our group of friends were gonna go. So I went with pretty low expectations and it turned out basically like I thought it would...very 'meh'.
My brief summary is that it reminds me a lot of the Dungeons and Dragons movie. Both are noble attempts at turning beloved fantasy RPG games into movie franchises, but both films have too many problems that prevent them from being truly enjoyable experiences.
There is a lot to enjoy in Warcraft for sure. Awesome visuals, epic music, solid action, and a couple stand out performances. But there are just too many "noob" mistakes in the film and I think a lot of that is due to the fact that not all indie directors are meant to take on huge blockbuster films after their initial success. Colin Trevorrow was able to do it, but even Jurassic World has flaws that are indicative of a blockbuster franchise being handed to an indie filmmaker.
I could really go into detail on everything that doesn't work but I'll hit on the biggest and most glaring issue in my eyes...the way the characters are portrayed. And I don't mean that in the sense of whether they were faithful enough to their game counterparts, I mean how genuine and interesting each character feels. I can honestly say that Durotan is the only character in the film that I felt any sort of connection to....and you know the film has a problem if the most interesting character is the typical leader type that has very little personality.
You also know a film is in trouble when all your CG characters feel more human than any of the human characters. There's one particular scene that comes to mind that almost ruins the entire movie for me...and that's when [BLACKOUT]Lothar's son dies.[/BLACKOUT] There was plenty of emotion from Lothar leading up to that event, but once it happens and they cut to what's supposed to be his reaction.....there's nothing. They could have created a CG model of Travis Fimmel and gotten more emotion from that! Now some people might say "he's emotionless because he's dead inside" or whatever...and I get that argument, I really do....but I don't buy it. That should've been saved for the scenes that followed. That entire scene should have been so gut wrenching but it was just eye rolling and borderline laughable. It feels like a cutscene from a video game....and not because of the CG, but because there's almost no emotion. It's just bad...really bad...and I pretty much clocked out for the rest of the movie.
The humans also feel miscast. I'm not sure exactly what the characters are like in the games but Travis Fimmell did not feel like a natural warrior. I think they were trying to feel kind of like a dastardly, rebel...which he sort of does, but he doesn't feel like a fighter. He also has a really weird look, something in his eyes, that makes him feel not so honorable. Khadgar was about the least uninspired look and feel for a character...ever. King Llane was just spouting lines and trying to look stoic. Ben Foster would've made a better Khadgar than Medivh. He looks too young and didn't feel majestic or authoritarian enough. And Garona.....*sigh* bless Paula Patton's heart but I don't think she's a good actress. She's very pleasing to look at, but her acting is so transparent in this movie it hurts, particularly when she first gets to speak after she's captured. Her body language throughout the whole movie feels very staged. I remember one particular shot at the end of the film when they're near the portal and King Llane is telling everyone to free the prisoners. They cut to Garona and she's holding her sword straight up in the air by her side like a kid could hold an ice cream cone. It totally took me out of the movie.
Another huge problem with the human characters is that...THERE'S NO CHEMISTRY!! Not once did I ever believe that any of the humans knew each other before the events in this film. The ONLY time I felt any kind of chemistry was when Lothar trolled Khadgar when he acted like he was gonna help him up. The film tries to force a romance between Lothar and Garona but there's no connection. Same with Lothar and his son, which is one of the reasons why [BLACKOUT]I didn't feel anything when his son got killed.[/BLACKOUT] There's nothing worse than having no chemistry between the actors. 2 actors can be the most bland and dull actors in the world, but if there's a good connection and good chemistry you'll be able to feel it through the camera and the same goes for little or no chemistry.
Anyway, summing up my rant. The film's biggest problem is the handling of the human characters: the miscasting, failing to portray them as interesting people, failing to provide them with proper motivation and the lack of any kind of chemistry. The best visual effects in the world can't save a film from a lack of interesting characters...and that's why, despite the more primitive effects, any one of the LOTR movies far surpasses Warcraft.
