If you’ve ever played video games, you know that those feature some of the best and most interactive stories in the world. Video game stories are so complex and large, that it is usually impossible for films to be able to adapt them. A lot of different studios have tried and they haven’t been able to make the video game film work. Whether it’s the Super Mario film from the 1990s, detective Pikachu, or perhaps the Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat films none of them have panned out well. However, in 2016, one of the most ambitiously good-looking films was Warcraft.
How to Stream or Download Warcraft (2016 film)
To stream or to download the film, click on the Download button that is located below this review. Check out also our review of World of Warcraft and Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos.
The Movie Review
In the lands of Azeroth, Humans, orcs and other fantastical creatures suffer at the hands of Fel Magic, a mystical force unknown to all. However, on the brink of extinction and after multiple tragedies, Humans and Orcs Must band together to defeat the true evil behind the wars of this world. The film has a very complex plot that is unfocused on any and all aspects of the characters. Most of the film goes from one event to the next, totally ignoring the characters and what they are all about while doing so.
The film was directed by Duncan Jones, who was previously known for films such as Moon and Source Code. Warcraft was a dramatic leap in terms of filmmaking style for Duncan Jones, and the director was curiously overwhelmed. It is visible throughout the entire day of the film, as the film is full of issues such as pacing, story beats, and plot. There is also a lot of studio interference in this film, which is visible through the horrible editing.
The plot of the film was much larger than life, it had too many story beats and way too many characters to fit into a runtime as small as only two hours.
However, there is a silver lining here the film had a decent amount of action that was fun to watch with a lot of CGI that was well animated and well done visual effects. Though aside from that, there isn’t much to love here. The one issue I had besides the overuse of CGI was the character development. The film essentially didn’t develop any characters at all, and the plot was stagnant because of that. There was no growth in the characters and there was just constant stability in the entirety of the cast.
I can’t say much about the performances as most of it was either CGI or actors being horrible at their jobs. Sure, there was a stand-out performance here are there such as Paula Patton as Garona Halforcen, a half-human, half-orc warrior caught between their two worlds.
There’s also Ben Foster as Medivh, the Guardian of Azeroth who is just the coolest character in the film. Though aside from those two, none other springs to mind when I think of commendable performances.
The cinematography would have been really good, though unfortunately most of the film is just green screens and animated content. Yup, this film was made in the same time span that The Hobbit films were coming out, and those films along with this one we’re just a slaughterhouse of CGI. There are just so many animation and visual effects shots that audiences cannot differentiate between the CGI and the practical effects. Every moment of screen time just feels fake and rubberized to look at.
The Bottom Line
While Warcraft had ambition and seemed like it was doing something new in terms of video game films, it is still a film that managed to be underwhelming at the end of the day hearing him it over-relied on the CGI and action set pieces, well never focusing on the characters and developing them more than they should have. This is just another in a line of video game films that proved to be frustrating for viewers, and I don’t think that any film before Sonic the Hedgehog really made it work.
