Let’s get a few things out of the way up front. Duncan Jones is a good director. Want proof? Check out 2009’s Moon, a compelling sci-fi gem that’s well worth your time. But the masses have developed a little problem of only expressing themselves in extremes. If we didn’t love it, well, then that means we hated it. If a movie is really good, we kiss its ass to a state of untouchable grace. Likewise, if a movie stumbles it’s labeled as the absolute worst abomination to ever hit the screen. There is no mediocrity anymore. Warcraft, the film based on the classic online role-playing game, is not good, but it’s not nearly the horror show it’s being portrayed as. It’s certainly not a “career-killer” for its director either. Jones is going to dust himself off and continue to make good pictures. And yes, so far there has not been a superb film adaptation of a video game property, but it will happen one day. Warcraft is a movie that didn’t work, plain and simple. Its source material is irrelevant. It failed as film. Not as a film based on a game.

Using a mysterious and evil magic called “the fel,” an orc leader named Gul’dan opens a portal to the human realm in an attempt to flee their dying homeworld, Draenor. In doing so, a war is sparked between the humans and the invading orcs. Durotan, the orc chieftain of the Forstwolf clan, realizes the corrupting power the fel has over Gul’dan, and all that it touches. It is fuelled by life itself, and the more that die the stronger the fel becomes. In an effort to stop it’s creeping destruction, Durotan sides with the human army of King Llane Wrynn, fighting alongside the likes of Sir Anduin Lothar, loyal knight and protector of King Wrynn, a half-orc named Garona, Medivh the Guardian, and a young, inexperienced mage named Khadgar. Soon it is discovered that the portal through which the orcs traveled was in fact, opened by someone in the human realm. But, whom?! Scandal!

The performances of Toby Kebbell as Dorotan and Paula Patton as Garona the half-orc are some of the only bright spots in the film. Delivered via motion capture, Kebbell’s performance stands out among the rest. Funny how even as a computer generated creature, his performance outshines his live-action counter parts. Paula Patton is a tremendous talent, and does her best despite being held back by the half-baked dialogue and a laughable set of orc teeth that look like they were bought at a pop-up Halloween store. But even her chops as an actress couldn’t make the poorly executed “romance” between her and Travis Fimmel’s Sir Lothar believable. It comes in hot out of left field, successfully blindsiding the audience. The term “unearned” is an understatement. They go from hostile and untrusting of each other, to being caught in the throes passion in the blink of an eye. The wide shots of cgi vistas range from beautiful to repetitive and bland, and the digitally created orcs are at times nearly impossible to distinguish one from the other. Performances from certain actors come off as though they were in a high school play but I’m not placing the blame entirely on them. It must have been quite an undertaking to make dialogue that bad even half way believable.

Look, I’m going to keep this short. There are millions of things wrong with this picture that I could highlight that I won’t. I won’t because the rest of the planet has already done that, and I’m not going to continue to kick this movie any more than it already has been. I have too much respect for Duncan Jones. I have too much respect for the game this picture is based on. This film is a stumble for sure, but not so badly that any hopes of a great movie adaptation of a video game are dashed. That’s just childish. Was this failure because of an over-reaching, too intrusive studio? Did its director lose his passion for the material? None of it matters. Duncan Jones will carry on, and video games and their film counterparts will too. Everybody just chill out.

Score

3/10