Warcraft

I understand that it's hard to come up with something new when it comes to adapting a PC game, especially when you've got Blizzard's watchful eye on your back, and the thousands of fans who've spent hundreds of hours in WoW. Even so, the filmmakers could still have delivered more than just a recycled dumb fantasy cliché that you’ll immediately discard because you've seen it in plenty of other movies, computer games, or read it in the weaker fantasy titles that bookstores are full of. I was going to write exactly what Cervenak wrote, but he beat me to it, so I'll just repeat it - any 10 minutes of The Hobbit is more fun than 2 hours of Warcraft. I’m not going to mince words, it was boring. (08/13/2016)

I got what I expected. A slightly above average fantasy film that tries to be spectacular and succeeds quite well, but unfortunately falls flat on its face due to the sometimes downright repulsive stylization (I get it, it's very subjective), but mostly due to the unfortunate casting of a good half of the main characters and the attempt to fast forward and untell everything. Because of this, it doesn't make any sense at all at times, the relationships between the characters don't work the way they probably should, and trying to show as many monsters, places, cities, spells and things as possible ruins a potentially interesting story that ends up being much more banal than it could have been. Fans will probably be thrilled, but all I got was an ordinary if fairly epic fantasy movie that was alternately quite entertaining and downright grating at times. On the other hand, I accept that it's the first film and they managed to deal the cards in such a way that the sequel could be quite interesting and I'll happily go see it in a few years. I definitely don't need to see First Clash again though. (05/15/2017)

So once again, I threw my preconceptions aside and almost completely volunteered to go to the cinema to see Warcraft. I had no idea what orcs were beforehand, and I found their teeth and general appearance quite laughable. Honestly, in the first few minutes, as fans of the game began to excitedly whisper their first impressions amongst each other, I mentally cursed myself for being there. But fine, it'll get better. I'll at least try getting into the normal people who act in it. Yeah, that Lothar guy's pretty cute. The queen's not completely off base, either. Aside from the teeth, Garona's actually pretty cool, too. Screw the teeth, she's great. And Durotan is the best orc in the world. Oh, my God, I like orcs! Is it over yet? Why?! It was just so much better than I expected, and I really want a second one. 4 stars. (07/03/2016)

Duncan Jones tries to appeal to fans of all kinds of the source material, as well as those unaffected by Warcraft, but in my case, he only made it halfway, stumbling along the way. When unfamiliar characters appear a few minutes into the film, looking deadly serious and throwing around unfamiliar names, titles, or at least mysterious words like "Gul'dan," I didn't believe I could get into the story. Luckily, the whole mythology is not complicated, and everything starts to fit together, especially when combination with the adventure where something is always happening, and there is never a moment without one of the main characters fighting, enchanting, or at least flying around a battle or spell. The problem is that beyond the initial visual destruction or emotionally well-crafted soundtrack, there is nothing else. The battles, romances, pacts, and wars lack entertainment value, and the entire First Contact takes place without me starting to root for Lothar and his comrades. On the contrary, the only character who truly interested me and for whom I was rooting for dies in a shockingly routine manner. I wouldn't mind a sequel because with such breadth, there will always be something to develop, but here, there was a lack of soul that would have made this newly discovered universe feel close to me. 50% (08/15/2016)

Essentially, you could say that it’s a rather adequately made absolute fantasy movie with everything that goes with it. So no Tolkien-like more history than fantasy or something in the style of The Game of Thrones, where it’s only after the end of the first season that you realize that this isn’t exactly a movie from the middle ages, but that it contains traces of fantasy as well. With this movie, that is clear already with the first digital orc character that appears in the first scene. At that point I realized that there was no other way, as the entire world of Warcraft is based mainly on nations such as elves, orcs, goblins, dwarves or the undead and humans are rather an ancillary nation. Or they do have their place in all this, but it is comparable to that of the other races. So, it took me about half the movie to get used to this film world. It was incredibly colorful, and the digital effect guys did a lot of work as well and looking for a part of the real world in this movie would be as hard as looking for a beer in a crate of Bud Light. But the second half of the movie got me up from my chair and despite initially thinking that I might not watch the movie to the end, the final war scene actually satisfied me, more or less. This doesn’t mean I would need to see the sequel, but on the other hand, I must agree that Blizzard managed to keep an eye of everything. I guess fans of “WoW” or “DotA” will probably die of bliss. (10/03/2016)