Warcraft Review

<p>Where does someone misstep so far off course that they end up directing <em>Warcraft<&sol;em>&quest; Duncan Jones made his directorial mark with the low-key&comma; intelligent sci-fi thriller <em>Moon&comma; <&sol;em>a film that took Sundance by storm&period; With his follow-up&comma; <em>Source Code<&sol;em>&comma; Jones solidified himself as a filmmaker with a distinct sense of style and personality that extends into his films&period; After I walked out of <em>Warcraft<&sol;em>&comma; I couldn&&num;8217&semi;t help but wonder what blinds someone so badly to have made a film this preposterous and absurd&comma; and I&&num;8217&semi;m not even referring to the source material&period; This movie is a disappointment to those who even had the smallest of expectations&period; Like a few games that have come out in recent years&comma; it&&num;8217&semi;s been released in a broken state&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em>Warcraft <&sol;em>follows the battle between the Orcs and the Humans&period; For plot reasons&comma; they cannot get along&period; The Orcs and their horde&comma; an army led by the Orc wizard&comma; Gul&&num;8217&semi;dan&comma; use the Fel&comma; a soul stealing magic&comma; to create a portal from their world&sol;dimension&sol;galaxy into the human one&period;  The humans just want to live peacefully&comma; because who wouldn&&num;8217&semi;t&quest; The orcs have been raiding settlements and those settlements contain traces of the Fel&period; Through the search for the Fel&comma; the Father&sol;Son dynamics&comma; and plotlines about honor&comma; you will find the story of <em>Warcraft<&sol;em> and what it all means&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;108760" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-108760" style&equals;"width&colon; 1777px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"size-full wp-image-108760" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2016&sol;06&sol;03141514&sol;MV5BMjA5MTMyMDU0M15BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwNDI5NDEyNzE&percnt;40&period;&lowbar;V1&lowbar;SX1777&lowbar;CR001777738&lowbar;AL&lowbar;&period;jpg" alt&equals;"&lpar;Warcraft&comma; Universal Pictures&rpar;" width&equals;"1777" height&equals;"738" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-108760" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;<em>Warcraft<&sol;em>&comma; Universal Pictures&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>Trying to find where this film went wrong is quite the task&period; You could start with the acting&period; What happened here&quest; There is going to be an inherent sense of silliness within the fantasy genre&semi; It comes with the territory&period; But there is a surprising lack of humor within <em>Warcraft&period; <&sol;em>It all starts with <a href&equals;"http&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;imdb&period;com&sol;name&sol;nm1379938&quest;ref&lowbar;&equals;tt&lowbar;ov&lowbar;st&lowbar;sm">Travis Fimmel<&sol;a> as Sir Anduin Lothar&period; As our protagonist&comma; he&&num;8217&semi;s a fairly flat character&comma; which doesn&&num;8217&semi;t help with the flat acting&period; Every chance he gets to bounce off one actor&comma; he&&num;8217&semi;s there to ruin a scene with another actor&period; You think his scenes would get better when he comes into contact with the underappreciated <a href&equals;"http&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;imdb&period;com&sol;name&sol;nm0004936&sol;&quest;ref&lowbar;&equals;tt&lowbar;cl&lowbar;t3">Ben Foster<&sol;a> as Medivh&comma; the &&num;8220&semi;guardian&&num;8221&semi; of Azeroth&comma; the human lands&period; Foster seems <strong>game <&sol;strong>to overact a little bit&comma; but his portion of the film is played so seriously&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>This only gets worse with the Orc characters&period; Durotan &lpar;<a href&equals;"http&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;imdb&period;com&sol;name&sol;nm1527905&sol;&quest;ref&lowbar;&equals;tt&lowbar;cl&lowbar;t5">Toby Kebbell<&sol;a>&rpar; is the chieftain for his clan of Orcs&period; These Orcs believe in his leadership and that somehow shows&period; Under the motion capture&comma; I could not tell it was Kebbell and that turns out to be the most immersive part of the whole movie&period; After <em>Rise<&sol;em> and <em>Dawn of the Planet of the Apes&comma;<&sol;em> Kebbell solidified himself as one of the best actors out there&period; While hiding under layers of CG makeup&comma; Kebbell sells his character and then some&period; Other actors like <a href&equals;"http&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;imdb&period;com&sol;name&sol;nm0000317&sol;&quest;ref&lowbar;&equals;tt&lowbar;cl&lowbar;t8">Clancy Brown<&sol;a>&comma; <a href&equals;"http&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;imdb&period;com&sol;name&sol;nm0943079&sol;&quest;ref&lowbar;&equals;tt&lowbar;cl&lowbar;t9">Daniel Wu<&sol;a> and <a href&equals;"http&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;imdb&period;com&sol;name&sol;nm2059117&sol;&quest;ref&lowbar;&equals;tt&lowbar;cl&lowbar;t7">Robert Kazinsky<&sol;a> really sell these creations as real creatures&period; They may have little to no character depth beyond &&num;8220&semi;some of us are good and some of us are evil&&num;8221&semi;&comma; but it&&num;8217&semi;s not for lack of trying&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;108759" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-108759" style&equals;"width&colon; 1777px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"size-full wp-image-108759" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2016&sol;06&sol;03141533&sol;MV5BMTQ5NTkwOTU3OV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwOTI5NDEyNzE&percnt;40&period;&lowbar;V1&lowbar;SX1777&lowbar;CR001777738&lowbar;AL&lowbar;&period;jpg" alt&equals;"&lpar;Warcraft&comma; Universal Pictures&rpar;" width&equals;"1777" height&equals;"738" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-108759" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;<em>Warcraft<&sol;em>&comma; Universal Pictures&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>What&&num;8217&semi;s truly astonishing is how mediocre some of the CG environments and creations are&period; Aside from the aforementioned Orcs&comma; which look incredibly realistic&comma; most of the imagery is fairly bland and generic&period; The one actual set that I can recall in the film is reminiscent of the big set in the Cannon Films classic&comma; <em>Masters of the Universe<&sol;em>&period; I wish a dubbed-over <a href&equals;"http&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;imdb&period;com&sol;title&sol;tt0093507&sol;mediaviewer&sol;rm4047490048">Dolph Lundgren<&sol;a> was in this&period; There is no imagination here that hasn&&num;8217&semi;t been found in any other large fantasy film in the last 20 years&period; That may have to do with the love for the source material or contractual faithfulness&comma; but there has to be room for some creativity&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>I could probably name everything from the writing to the bland exercise in fantasy film scoring from beloved<em> Game of Thrones<&sol;em> composer Ramin Djawadi&period; <em>Warcraft<&sol;em> is an exercise in blockbuster flops&period; Duncan Jones probably hasn&&num;8217&semi;t tarnished his name yet &lpar;I&&num;8217&semi;m personally looking forward to his sci-fi noir&comma; <em>Mute&rpar;&comma; <&sol;em>but this has come close to doing so&period; If there&&num;8217&semi;s anything to learn from this&comma; it&&num;8217&semi;s not to work with Blizzard on a movie&comma; ever&period; Let&&num;8217&semi;s hope we can just forget about this and look toward the beautiful future of a world without <em>Warcraft<&sol;em> sequels&period; Please don&&num;8217&semi;t let there be sequels&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<hr &sol;>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; center&semi;"><em><strong>Warcraft is in theaters now and is produced by Universal Pictures<&sol;strong><&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;