Friday Movie Review: Warcraft

by Darren Blair

Cove Leader-Press 

Just as I watched shows like “Jem”, “Transformers” and “The Equalizer” back when they were still doing their first-run broadcasts back in the 1980s, I played “Warcraft” back when it was nothing more ambitious than a top-down RTS (real-time strategy) video game. Yes, when “World of Warcraft” was still a pipe dream, I was mastering the art of sending squads of invisible knights to smite the orcish horde.

Anyway…

Azeroth is, on the surface, a peaceful realm. King Llane (Dominic Cooper) rules over Stormwind with the help of Lothar (Travis Fimmel), his best commander. All Llane and Lothar want is to see the land remain quiet. Unfortunately for them, however, peace is not to be.

Unbeknownst to the rulers of Azeroth’s kingdoms, the realm of Draenor is dying. Someone has introduced “fel” magic to the realm, a magic that gives its wielder incomprehensible power at the cost of their draining the life force from living beings and even the land itself as fuel. The orcs’ warlord, Gul’Dan (Daniel Wu), is more than willing to make this exchange, and so now Draenor cannot support such numbers for much longer. Gul’Dan’s solution to their plight is a massive portal they’ll use to invade Azeroth.

Among the invasion force is Durotan (Toby Kebbell), chief of the Frost Wolf clan. As a new father, Durotan finds himself thinking further into the future than the other chiefs *and* questioning the morality of sacrificing innocent beings to fuel the fel. He eventually concludes that Gul’Dan is a threat to orc and human alike and so must be overthrown before he can destroy this realm as well.

Durotan receives his chance when a half-blood orc named Garona (Paula Patton) is captured in battle by the apprentice mage Khadgar (Ben Schnetzer), who first sounded the alert of the orcish invasion. Durotan recognizes that Garona can serve as a go-between due to her mixed status, and so has her arrange a meeting between himself and Llane. Durotan explains that the humans have mere days before Gul’Dan opens the portal again to bring the rest of the horde through, and so the only way to stop it in time is for the forces of Stormwind to join with the Frost Wolves to destroy it and Gul’Dan. But unbeknownst to Durotan and Llane, both factions are rife with spies and traitors, meaning that overthrowing Gul’Dan is not going to be as easy as they believe…

The film hits the viewer with a barrage of characters and place names, an effort to maximize the amount of world-building in a minimum amount of time. Between this and the ending, it’s obvious that the film is merely part of a larger whole. This may be good news for long-time fans of the franchise who desire to see more films, but can make this specific installment daunting for casual fans swords & sorcery fantasy. To be brutally honest, it might have been better to approach the franchise with a television series instead of movie installments, since television is more casually paced and so allows time to space everything out. It would have also allowed the creative talents more time to shine, as under the present format some characters are little more than living plot devices and fan-pleasers. We don’t really get a chance to care about everyone, and so the film’s emotional impacts are deadened. Even the graphic violence gets old after a while.

All told, the film feels like someone dropped a hastily-cobbled beta in lieu of a proper release candidate.

Total: 6.5 / 10

Rating: PG-13

Run Time: 123 minutes.