[Movie] Warcraft (June 2016)

[Zulkhan]

No political situation ever influenced the original game or the movie. In Warcraft 1 (1994) the Orcs invaded Azeroth because they were corrupted and bloodthirsty, not because their planet was dying and they wanted to peacefully find a new home. In the movie it goes like that because Duncan wanted to show both sides of the story without making Orcs the bad guys, so he gave them a good and morally acceptable reason to escape. It has absolutely nothing to do with Europe or California immigration problems.

To be fair, even in the WC2 manual it was mentioned how Draenor was basically a dead planet and orcs were escaping from it.

It doesn't change the point, though. The orcs were still an army of conquerors, not mere refugees, and the destruction of Draenor was more or less caused by the orcs themselves. Even in the movie the orcs are still depicted as an army of fel-corrupted orcs kidnapping people to fuel their portal and let the whole of their army swarm over Azeroth like locusts. The parallel drawn here is silly, to say the least.

Anyway, I'm off. Gym is calling.

[Anduin94]

All right, so I saw the movie yesterday.
Bear in mind that I am completely biased because they gave me a free mousepad and I won a gaming mouse. (None of those plebs knew Ben Foster was playing Medivh. Such amateurs, lol.) /s

First of all, I'll give my score: 8/10, which could've been a 9/10 if not for some issues. A non-fan score would probably be a 7/10.

So I'll just start off echoing the sentiment that yes, the pacing is off. It jumps around a LOT in the beginning, never really staying in place for more than a few minutes, and character introductions are veeeery short, if not non-existent. Khadgar is found, spell chucker happens, and now we're gonna go see the king. The king is met, now off to Medivh. It's very rushed, even for the orcs' side, but I'll get back to that.
Then it settles down to a more comfortable pacing, and the audience gets a bit of room to breathe, but it's still fast-paced.

Now, about the acting...
It's fine. There were 1 or 2 moments that stood out, but nothing serious. The worst performance was Llane's, but it wasn't that bad. He was solidly okay for the majority of the movie.
Travis played well, even if he's very similar to Ragnar. He's good at conveying emotions and doing a lot of small gestures that adds to his performance.
Paula was surprisingly good, at least in the beginning. She did give the impression of being an orc. Later there were some problems with Lothar, but I'll get back to those, too. ^^
Ruth Negga did fine, but was under-used.
Ben Schnetzer did surprisingly well, also. I don't recall cringing at his performance ever. It wasn't amazing, but it was good enough.
Ben Foster played Medivh pretty well. He gave off the aura of a reclusive wizard who had been alone for maybe a tad too long.

For the orcs (Gonna keep it brief because it's harder to judge performance through the mo-cap):
Clancy Brown did a really good job as Blackhand.
Kazinsky was a good Orgrim.
Toby Kebbell did a really good job as Durotan.
Daniel Wu KILLED IT as Gul'dan.
Anna Galvin was a good Draka, and her motion capture is among the most impressive, so it was a joy to watch her.

Now, as for the CHARACTERS that they all played...
Honestly, they were all fine. I know that goes against what most of you have read, specifically when it comes to the humans, but here's what I think is the problem.
It's not the characters that are bad. It's that the movie is way too short. This goes back to the pacing issue I mentioned earlier. It feels like a lot of things were cut. Little things all over the place which would've stabilized the pacing and much-needed given additional character development. The movie feels like it needs to be sprinkled with another 3-5 minutes every little non-action scene. I think DJ had to make a lot of cuts for one reason or another, but the movie wasn't made to work without those cuts. DJ himself said that there were a bunch of scenes they couldn't put in that he'd like to put on the blu-rays as an extended addition, and honestly, I think that is exactly what it needs. It probably won't solve all the problems, but it should help. So many things just feel a bit rushed. Draenor, Lothar x Garona, Lothar and his son's relationship, character introductions, character development (mainly humans), locations.
Like I said, I don't imagine all of those things could be fixed with an extended edition, but I think it might be enough to bring the score up to an 8/10 for non-fans, and maybe a 8.5-9/10 for fans.

While keeping that in mind, I'll get more specific about the characters.
Lothar was very Ragnar. Whether that's good or bad is entirely up to you, but he was a decent character in my book.
Llane struck me as a king that tried hard, but wasn't overly complicated.
Garona is one of the better characters, barring the under-developed romance. I really enjoyed her at the beginning of the movie, when she did not trust the humans.
Lothar's son is sadly under-developed, so not much to say about his character. He wants to be like his daddy. That's about it.
Same for Lothar's sister, though she could get more development in the second movie.
Khadgar was a eager young wizard who wanted to read and was a bit naive, just like he should be.
Medivh was great, if a bit under-developed.

So the humans ranged from okay to fine.
The orcs, however, are pretty much all great. Durotan, Draka, Orgrim, Blackhand, and Gul'dan were all very entertaining. Gul'dan was especially amazing to watch. He totally stole the show.

Now, for the visuals and sound.
I expected the visual to be great, and they didn't disappoint, buuuuut do NOT watch the movie in 3D. Any sweeping shots will be blurry beyond belief, and it made it harder to appreciate the details.
However, what truly impressed me was actually the sound. Of course I watched it in a really good cinema, but I honestly think that didn't have that much of an impact. The sound design was what was amazing. The orcs just sounded so heavy. Everything had a great oompfh to it, and it really helped to give them weight. Honestly, the CGI and sound design was unparalleled, if you ask me. I didn't notice any bad green screens, but then again, the 3D would've made that harder, anyway. The humans' armor also all looked good on the big screen, except of course Llane's helmet, which just looks silly by design. I was especially impressed by the King's Sword, which very much looked like real metal. (Not to say the rest didn't, but it got a pretty big close-up shot.)
The soundtrack was fine, but I only really noticed one other track apart from the one we know.


Now the plot. It's good enough. Some things from the lore was left out, but some of those things can very well be added to the beginning of a sequel, so it's not a big deal.
I thought it did a good job with a lot of things, especially incorporating Durotan into it. You can also tell that Duncan loves the Warcraft universe, 'cause there are a lot of little easter eggs that I could appreciate. I also wanna address two concerns I've read: No, Medivh's betrayal wasn't super obvious. And no, the movie doesn't take itself too seriously. It can be pretty serious, but there is a lot of little bits of humor throughout the movie, in a similar style to Star Wars: The Force Awakens. I laughed out loud at least 3 times, and had a lot of chuckles and smiles.
The very best part of the movie, for me, was the mak'gora. It just looked and sounded amazing, and had great atmosphere.

The movie isn't a masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination, but it's still a great movie for fans, and a good movie for non-fans. It's very flawed, but hopefully an extended edition will fix some of those.

Awesome review, very detailed yet non-spoilerish.
Only one question: is the great Mak'gora scene the Lothar vs Blackhand one or Gul'dan vs Durotan?

[Frozen Death Knight]

The english fel and the german "fell" are though.

Here is the scene with khadgar from the movie clips in german:

https://youtu.be/4TJvCfL6fyk?t=3m29s

I may not be German myself, but I did study the language back in school. I have to say, the dubbing is pretty darn good. The voice actors' lines are lip synced really well and the acting is pretty spot on. Great quality dubbing right there.

[Arrowstormen]

Awesome review, very detailed yet non-spoilerish.
Only one question: is the great Mak'gora scene the Lothar vs Blackhand one or Gul'dan vs Durotan?

Guldan vs Durotan

[quras]

That has nothing to do with the lore.

If some argument is you want more of the book and that story in the movie to develop characters then well you and I wont agree because thats pretty much lore as well.

[Anduin94]

Guldan vs Durotan

Thanks for the answer

[Arrowstormen]

I'm always for extended editions, but I imagine the best it could help with is the beginning, extending some scenes and such.

[Waynhim]

Tossed all my thoughts together in a video. Please forgive the crap production quality.

Good review. Thanks!

[Anduin94]

Good review. Thanks!

So sad they cut that scene so much.... ugh, why

[Thontor]

This guy absolutely loved it. He gave it a 9/10.

http://geektyrant.com/news/review-wa...adventure-film

2 weeks til I see it. Can't wait!

[Gib Lover]

Tossed all my thoughts together in a video. Please forgive the crap production quality.

I like your voice.
Gave me ASMR tingles.
No homo tho.
Subscribing when I get home.
Say more soft sweet things.

Also good review, you laid out your views very eloquently and gave plenty of consideration to "the other hand."

[Deleted]

Tossed all my thoughts together in a video. Please forgive the crap production quality.

Thanks for this review, everything i expected and i didn't do. Posted it on my facebook feed, to convince some that are still not.

[Skorpionss]

Tossed all my thoughts together in a video. Please forgive the crap production quality.

I want to steal your voice !!!

I want someone to tweet DJ this review and ask about that 3 and a half hour Extended Edition

[Kelimbror]

Nope. Still a moron apparently that doesn't get how many influences can be in a story without being the primary theme. There are most assuredly those in WC who would agree with trump. Including in the film. Pretending this isn't true is fan boys dismissing a valid interpretation given the current political climate(globally speaking). Get over the fact that this film isn't amazing. It is mediocre at best, but entertaining if you let yourself be entertained.

You know you can safely ignore everything someone is saying when they have to insult you to somehow 'prove' their point. If you are this easily rattled by satire, that you have to be offensive, you clearly don't have a lot to discuss. You have also deftly revealed your true intentions (which have been obvious before now) in having to somehow tie in someone questioning your anecdotal explanation of Warcraft's original narrative as a political agenda...with 'fan boys' and you bashing the movie.

Somehow not believing your anecdotal take on Warcraft lore is tantamount to thinking the movie is good, also an opinion you don't hold.

Right. You're crazy. I'm sorry, but if you're gonna claim Chris Metzen came up with a story where one race is invading a planet as parallel to immigrants invading California, you really need to put forth some evidence if you don't want to make yourself look like a complete clown.

Yeah, but as I've quickly realized there's just no talking to some people. Apparently they 'lived through it' so they 'know things'.

[Frozen Death Knight]

Tossed all my thoughts together in a video. Please forgive the crap production quality.

You should do more short reviews like this. It was actually really entertaining and you got your points across pretty well.

Man, I really want an extended cut of this movie even more badly now.

[Spriggs]

That is a great review which explains what probably went wrong at points with the post-production. Hopefully there will be a director's cut with those missing scenes.

[Deleted]

I'm always for extended editions, but I imagine the best it could help with is the beginning, extending some scenes and such.

I agree very much.

[Soulwind]

Tossed all my thoughts together in a video. Please forgive the crap production quality.

This should be linked in every single thread of the movie. It's perfect.

[Anduin94]

I just saw Gul'dan's new video....... that was scary

[Sarethion]

This should be linked in every single thread of the movie. It's perfect.

It's probably the best review of Warcraft I saw so far.
It goes over the shorcoming of the movie, but it actually tries to explain why the reviewer felt this way without trying to be a smart-ass who uses fancy terminology and weird comparisons to hate on something (which, imo, most reviewers do). Definetely a healthy, useful type of critique that doesn't fail to notice the things that were good in the movie.

Also, deloctyte - you have a really great voice plus the production quality was really awesome (far better then people just talking to the camera or showing off their "reactions" when watching movie footage). I will check out your other stuff later, but if you do/will do more reviews/discussions like this one (preferrably with similar style of drawings and production), you just got yourself a new sub (and I'm extremely picky as to who I sub on YT, so it says a lot about how much I liked it)

P.S. Also a huge plus for using a simple, normal language and not trying to be "cool & funny" all the time (seriously, I hate a lot of videos where people try way too hard to be awesome and funny and entertaining, you didn't do that - your drawings provided a subtle comic contrast to the serious things you were saying, which I really, really liked).

---

On a side note, I think about what deloctyte said and I think the issue with the movie may be that Duncan was too passionate about it and due to his passion, he got a bit carried away in the production and just wanted to do too many things, so in the end they may have just either run out of budget to make everything look great, or they simply had to cut a lot of things to avoid the movie being too long for an average viewer. If that was the case, I can understand why the pacing might feel off.