[Movie] Warcraft (June 2016)

[Zulkhan]

@callyx sounds like it sucks. Great. Hype train derailed. Will not see this in the cinema.

Wow, you guys are susceptible as fuck.

[Galathir]

Just came home from the midnight screening in Munich. Time to share my thoughts.
I can understand all the fans coming out of the movie loving it. However I can also understand the critics hating it.

First the good stuff:
The movie looks awesome. Even after all the trailers and videos we got I was still worried about the orcs. That was blown away with the first closeup of Durotan's face. If this movie got one thing right, it was the orcs. The fights are well choreographed and there are lots and lots of easter eggs.
For those who just care about looks that may already be enough to go home happy.

The soundtrack was okay. No highlights and hopefully you liked the theme that was on frontpage one or two weeks ago because there is a lot more of that.

However in my opinion that is about it with the good parts.

The movie takes itself too seriously. The whole movie got one laugh and two or three chuckles out of an audience made up entirely of fans. That's not enough for a fantasy movie where people run around throwing magic while shouting gibberish.

The pacing and story are literally all over the place. Most of the movie is made up of short isolated scenes of 10-20 seconds. Then the movie jumps to an entirely different location and we get another similar short scene. Then another jump and so on. This makes it somewhat hard to follow. I often sat in my seat and wondered if I would be able to follow the story if I didn't already know what was going on.

This however is only a symptom of the movie's biggest flaw:
It is so focused on driving its story forwards that it completely forgets about the characters. We hardly get any chance to relate to them because we don't get to know them. And most of the little we do get to know is told via exposition.

In my opinion this is best examplified by Callan's death. When it happened it was built up as being very impactful but I couldn't feel anything because I had only seen him in two or three scenes before and knew next to nothing about him. Even for Anduin all it apparently took to get over it was one drinking scene with Garona (in which we get to know more about Callan than in the entire movie before) until he killed Blackhand and went "That was for Callan" (I was: "Oh yeah, there was something. Completely forgot about that.").

Want to know how little they care for their characters? Orgrim Doomhammer is one of the most important orcs. His name is mentioned once in the entire movie.
You like Kargath Bladefist or Grommash Hellscream? Then you'll hopefully like them standing in the background without a word of dialogue.

I wanted to like the movie and from a purely aesthetic and technical standpoint I do but I just couldn't get into it.

[Deleted]

@callyx sounds like it sucks. Great. Hype train derailed. Will not see this in the cinema.

It didn't suck, its just not the masterpiece many fans are probably expecting. I was still fairly entertained, and with an extended cut it could be a pretty good movie. As i said, i believe the worst flaw was the runtime because there's a lot of characters that really weren't fleshed out very well.

[Wyattbw09]

Reasonable Review?

I love this review.

As long as you don't expect much, and don't compare against good fantasy pieces of our time, and understand that it's target is kids and teenagers with low expectations, then this is a pretty good movie.

Excellent review.

[Numbars]

So i just came back from the midnight screening.

Its definitely no masterpiece, but its not as horrible as the reviews may lead you to believe either. I'd give it 7/10.
I enjoyed it as a Warcraft fan, but i can totally see how people who are not familiar with the setting would be left unimpressed.
The first 30 minutes or so are awkwardly paced imo, the orcs are already through the portal 5 minutes in, theres really not a lot of explaining, many short scenes/cuts with a lot of names dropped. I didn't have a problem with that since i know the story/characters/places etc but my girlfriend (who i dragged along, she has no clue about Warcraft) basically had no idea what was going on in the beginning.
The CGI is really amazing, those orc close ups looked phenomenal and you forget the orcs are digital characters pretty soon into the movie, the magic was very well done aswell.
Soundtrack was ok, it did its job in accompanying the scenes in an unintrusive way, though theres really no track that stood out to me.
I can't really comment on the acting too much since i saw the dubbed version and line delivery is a huge aspect, the orc actors really did an amazing job with the motion capture though. Gul'dan was amazing.
A big flaw in my opinion is the runtime. It definitely needed at least 30 more minutes to properly build the characters, especially the humans. It also seems they cut a lot of scenes, there's stuff in the leaked CC footage that wasn't in the movie.
Draka was a big disappointment to me, very little screen time and her death scene was quite abrupt and underwhelming to me. The death scenes in general don't have a lot of emotional impact since the characters just aren't developed well enough. Callan has maybe two or three spoken lines in the movie when he dies. I noticed Grom and Kargath by the way, though they have no lines either.

Grom has no lines? so that's part of the cut scenes from CC? man that's disappointing.... It seems they went to far out of their way to "streamline" the story and keep the pace fast that it just under delivers...

[Deleted]

Just came home from the midnight screening in Munich. Time to share my thoughts.
I can understand all the fans coming out of the movie loving it. However I can also understand the critics hating it.



First the good stuff:
The movie looks awesome. Even after all the trailers and videos we got I was still worried about the orcs. That was blown away with the first closeup of Durotan's face. If this movie got one thing right, it was the orcs. The fights are well choreographed and there are lots and lots of easter eggs.
For those who just care about looks that may already be enough to go home happy.

The soundtrack was okay. No highlights and hopefully you liked the theme that was on frontpage one or two weeks ago because there is a lot more of that.

However in my opinion that is about it with the good parts.

The movie takes itself too seriously. The whole movie got one laugh and two or three chuckles out of an audience made up entirely of fans. That's not enough a fantasy movie where people run around throwing magic while shouting gibberish.

The pacing and story are literally all over the place. Most of the movie is made up of short isolated scenes of 10-20 seconds. Then the movie jumps to an entirely different location and we get another similar short scene. Then another jump and so on. This makes it somewhat hard to follow. I often sat in my seat and wondered if I would be able to follow the story if I didn't already know what was going on.

This however is only a symptom of the movie's biggest flaw:
It is so focused on driving its story forwards that it completely forgets about the characters. We hardly get any chance to relate to them because we don't get to know them. And most of the little we do get to know is told via exposition.

[spoiler]In my opinion this is best examplified by Callan's death. When it happened it was built up as being very impactful but I couldn't feel anything because I had only seen him in two or three scenes before and knew next to nothing about him. Even for Anduin all it apparently takes to get over it is one drinking scene with Garona (in which we get to know more about Callan than in the entire movie before) until he kills Blackhand and goes "That was for Callan" (I went: "Oh yeah, there was something. Completely forgot about that.").

Want to know how little they care for their characters? Orgrim Doomhammer is one of the most important orcs. His name is mentioned once in the entire movie.
You like Kargath Bladefist or Grommash Hellscream? Then you'll hopefully like them standing in the background without a word of dialogue.

I wanted to like the movie and from a purely aesthetic and technical standpoint I do but I just couldn't get into it. [/spoiler]

it seems we share the same opinion, this is pretty much exactly what i typed a few posts up.

[Nightstalker]

Watched it. Biggest issues (as mentioned before):
Pacing: too much (sometimes unnecessary) location changes in the first act.
Editing: too much intercutting of scenes, abrupt changes that also don't help the pacing.
Character development: Needs at least 15-20 mins in the beginning to set up + a minute here and there to - not necessarily in dialogue - explain motivations and reasons. An extra line or two of dialogue would've also helped here and there. A bit more emotion and less dull line delivery might make the movie more engaging. Some side characters are underused and/or their actions feel forced.
It works for the general audience that expects to be entertained for 2 hours, but if you're not a fan of the franchise you might not take that much out of the movie and forget about plot/characters pretty quick.

The best part or more likely feature of the movie that will be mentioned everywhere: The CGI, the World of Azeroth (or at least what we see of it) looks pretty close to what you see in the game. Some buildings + entire Stormwind itself aren't exactly the same, but the redesign works to the movies favor.

I never really pin down a movie on numbers, but I'd give it a slightly biased 6.5/10.
For those who are worried about the bad reviews: Those are pure exaggeration. Critits expected a bad video game movie as usual and started writing their sarcastic review as soon as the movie lost them due to not being high art.

[Galathir]

it seems we share the same opinion, this is pretty much exactly what i typed a few posts up.

Didn't even read that till just now. Funny how we agree completely.

[cUbik]

I don't understand why anyone here cares about what the reviews have to say. I know this much, I am going to see this movie in the cinema, first time I go to a cinema in 20 years. Those of you that either loved or hated this universe I hope you'll be there with me; this was our fantasy, our universe, our time wasted, our imagination enriched, our money spent, our dreams crushed, our battles lost, our battles won. In my eyes this is a tribute to us, the unknown, never named heroes that played this game. We should not care what Mr. X that never logged into a game has to say, or publication Y that has their own agenda writes about it. Come with me, we will live this fantasy again, with open minds and hearts, and for 2 hours we will remember how it was 15 years ago, when we first stepped into a world that somehow made sense.

[Spriggs]

If this film is successful enough for a sequel, I hope Jones takes the criticism to heart and improves with his next try, unlike some people (glares angrily at Zack Snyder).

[Numbars]

Lets hope Duncan is able to add cut scenes to the film on Bluray.. its obvious from what a lot of people are saying that a lot was cut

[Theoris]

@callyx sounds like it sucks. Great. Hype train derailed. Will not see this in the cinema.

Not sure if serious...

[Masser]

On the recent Twitter Q&A session Duncan said that he hopes to be able to do an extended cut of the film.

Apparently many scenes were cut from the film.

Here's the link: https://twitter.com/ManMadeMoon/stat...55235307065344

[Nightstalker]

On the recent Twitter Q&A session Duncan said that he hopes to be able to do an extended cut of the film. lots of scenes have been cut.

Can almost exactly imagine which. Missing Shots/Scenes from the trailers hint at that.

[Northy]

I love this review.

As long as you don't expect much, and don't compare against good fantasy pieces of our time, and understand that it's target is kids and teenagers with low expectations, then this is a pretty good movie.

Excellent review.

Yeah, I found them to be reasonable in their observations of the movie. Reviewers have a tendency to jump to extremes by shouting that movie is either amazing or horrible, when in reality most movies fall somewhere in the middle. Their reasoning for liking the movie appear legitimate.

[jdbond592]

Watched it. Biggest issues (as mentioned before):
Pacing: too much (sometimes unnecessary) location changes in the first act.
Editing: too much intercutting of scenes, abrupt changes that also don't help the pacing.
Character development: Needs at least 15-20 mins in the beginning to set up + a minute here and there to - not necessarily in dialogue - explain motivations and reasons. An extra line or two of dialogue would've also helped here and there. A bit more emotion and less dull line delivery might make the movie more engaging. Some side characters are underused and/or their actions feel forced.
It works for the general audience that expects to be entertained for 2 hours, but if you're not a fan of the franchise you might not take that much out of the movie and forget about plot/characters pretty quick.

The best part or more likely feature of the movie that will be mentioned everywhere: The CGI, the World of Azeroth (or at least what we see of it) looks pretty close to what you see in the game. Some buildings + entire Stormwind itself aren't exactly the same, but the redesign works to the movies favor.

I never really pin down a movie on numbers, but I'd give it a slightly biased 6.5/10.
For those who are worried about the bad reviews: Those are pure exaggeration. Critits expected a bad video game movie as usual and started writing their sarcastic review as soon as the movie lost them due to not being high art.

Precisely what critics have said. Pity...At this point it is downright humiliating to defend this movie since we have not even seen it. Still, we should motivate any and all fans to go see it..

[tangocash]

Wow, you guys are susceptible as fuck.

I was kidding and being sarcastic. I'll be in the cinema the day it comes out. Getting tired of the pessimistic bullshit.

[jdbond592]

Yeah, I found them to be reasonable in their observations of the movie. Reviewers have a tendency to jump to extremes by shouting that movie is either amazing or horrible, when in reality most movies fall somewhere in the middle. Their reasoning for liking the movie appear legitimate.

Except these reviewers will have tremendous impact on who goes and who doesn't go to movie theater outside of fandom. If this was 2nd or third Warcraft movie, none of this would matter. A sh..t load of people were on fence thanks to poor trailer/marketing and now they know for sure they shouldn't touch this movie.


I am sorry but if this "franchise" does survive, DJ needs to go.

[Nightstalker]

I am sorry but if this "franchise" does survive, DJ needs to go.

Wouldn't always blame it on the director. When it comes to big summer blockbusters the studio always forces changes to the final film, so the big masses with the so called short time attention span won't be disappointed. But just look at LotR #1. That movie has a really slow start due to exposition etc but still works as a whole.

[Deleted]

Except these reviewers will have tremendous impact on who goes and who doesn't go to movie theater outside of fandom. If this was 2nd or third Warcraft movie, none of this would matter. A sh..t load of people were on fence thanks to poor trailer/marketing and now they know for sure they shouldn't touch this movie.


I am sorry but if this "franchise" does survive, DJ needs to go.

I've seen you blame DJ for everything. There is no indication he is the only one responsible for the plot and writing. If I understand it right the studio, Blizz and Metzen were involved too. I'm pretty sure this tame avatar bs was forced upon the movie wheter DJ liked it or not.