Warcraft (2016)

Don't listen to the negative reviews

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

Firstly, I've not played Warcraft so unlike most reviewers here giving glowing reviews, I am unbiased.The first problem I have is that for the first half hour I had no idea what the bloody hell was going on! There was a small voice over explaining that a war had been going on for a long time but that was it, if like me you are unfamiliar with the world you'll be none the wiser. Having said that after the initial confusion I did get the gist enough to enjoy the story as the film progressed.Secondly, there is very little character development and I found it very hard to sympathise with the human characters, I didn't really care if they lived or died. Conversely the Orc's development worked well and because of this I found myself siding with the characters that were technically the bad guys.Now, the biggy... there is so much CGI. Admittedly on the most part at least, it is unquestionably well done but I would say that for three quarters of the movie the only real things on screen are the human actors. It makes me question if this is a live action movie or an animated movie with human characters inserted. What's more it's unnecessary - LOTR managed a 12 hour trilogy with convincing Orcs in prosthetics. The Orcs size here could have been augmented with CGI of course, and the fantasy landscapes needn't have been full CGI either. The film suffers because of a 'CGI it because we can mentality. Thing is though, the non-CGI sets looked like they were lifted from an Erroll Flynn Robin Hood movie of the 1940s with obvious Styrofoam castle walls that screamed cheap. Not enough money left after paying the techies for their pixel magic maybe?Then we come to the actors. Don't get me wrong the acting is fine though they do suffer from a script full of quasi-medieval English (I half expected a "forsooth" or a "wherefore art"), but the casting people just seem to have raided every popular TV series going without casting a single A list star save for a pointless cameo from Glenn Close. Maybe after investing in the sets they should've diverted some CGI budget into casting?So, yes, I have a few problems with the film but it has to be said I enjoyed it. Once I figured out what was going on I got into it. The story is pretty good and benefits from not being a typical 'humans good, other species bad' fantasy film with half the focus (and better development) given to 'the bad guys'. Travis Fimmel does seem to be playing Ragnar Lothbrök without the accent but it's not a huge issue. I don't think it counts as a spoiler to say that they're clearly setting up a sequel at the end, and I will give it a watch. An average fantasy movie that does have many faults but there is hope that this could develop into an enjoyable franchise.

If you have not played the game or read the book you will love this, very enjoyable and I can not wait to see the new one. There are lot of people who have read the book or played the game, for them this was always going to a hard sell. You can not make everyone happy. Sound and visual were amazing, story moved quickly but I assume there was a lot to cover in the 1st edition.

Just went back and watched this again, now a few years later and its even better than the first time.Travis Fimmel (Anduin Lothar) and Paula Patton (Garona) have great chemistry and their performances along with Ben Foster (Medivh) Ben Schnet (Kadgar) Toby Kebbel (Durotan) and Daniel Wu (Gul'dan) are excellent. As well as more minor characters. The story plot follows the World of Warcraft game lore for the most part with some exceptions for Garona to bring the adventure along. Having a strong knowledge of that lore is what turned it from a 7 to a 9 for me as all the details were there in the settings and in the characters. And for World of Warcraft Players, having an understanding of the lore and general story already having played the game enhances the film as you can envision what you know has happened outside of this story laid on top of what you see in the film. The actual production of this film, CGI etc. is amazing. The Director's work in maintaining continuity and performance is solid, especially given the complexity of CGI.And the nod to a sequel at the end has me hoping that Blizzard will follow through with the same Class A Production on a sequel soon!

First off, I've played WoW a bit, not much but a bit. My brother however lost years of his life to this game. When he saw it, he told me "It was trash". This is why it took me so long to see it. So today after work, I put it on with him in the room to see if he'd demand me to turn it off. He didn't, we watched it. Scene after scene I got more excited about what was going on, asking him to update me on the nerd bits that I don't know about. Little by little, even he agreed that it was awesome.I believe for him it was Ben Foster's take on the Guardian. Forgive me if I don't spell things WoW nerds know about. I think Ben Foster is one of best actors out there and there are a couple monologues that he did quite well in this film.For me however I was overly excited about the Orcs and how well the CGI was, even though very obviously fake, the facial expressions plus the voice acting and story's were downright amazing.And to top it off Ben Foster becoming a bad ass demon in the end was just killer. I can't wait for a sequel. This was so much better than the new Star Wars and absolutely all of the (live action only as the animated LotR films are awesome) Lord of the Rings films. If a studio is listening....bring Duncan Jones back. Continue the story. If not. Thank you very much for an amazing film!