Psycho's Movie Reviews #189: WARCRAFT (2016)

Warcraft (alternatively known as Warcraft: The Beginning) is a 2016 American action fantasy film based on the video game series of the same name. Directed by Duncan Jones and written by Charles Leavitt and Jones, it stars Travis Fimmel, Paula Patton, Ben Foster, Dominic Cooper, Toby Kebbell, Ben Schnetzer, Robert Kazinsky, Clancy Brown, and Daniel Wu. The film follows Anduin Lothar of Stormwind and Durotan of the Frostwolf clan as heroes set on opposite sides of a growing war, as the warlock Gul'dan leads the Horde to invade Azeroth using a magic portal. Together, a few human heroes and dissenting Orcs must attempt to stop the true evil behind this war and restore peace.

The film was first announced in 2006 as a project partnership between Legendary Pictures and the game's developer, Blizzard Entertainment. Warcraft premiered in Paris on May 24, 2016, and was released by Universal Pictures in the United States on June 10, 2016. Though it underperformed at the domestic box office and received generally negative reviews from critics, the film managed to gross $439 million worldwide, surpassing Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time as the highest-grossing video game adaptation of all time.

Plot

Draenor, homeworld to the orcs, is being torn apart by a mysterious force known as fel magic. Gul'dan, an orc warlock, unites the orc clans into the Horde, and creates a portal to the world of Azeroth by using fel magic to drain the life out of captive draenei. Gul'dan leads a small warband through the portal to capture and sacrifice prisoners on Azeroth to bring the Horde. Durotan, the chieftain of the Frostwolf Clan, his pregnant mate Draka, and his friend Orgrim Doomhammer join this initial warband. When the orcs arrive on Azeroth, Draka goes into labor, and Gul'dan rescues the dying baby, named Go'el, by draining the life out of a nearby deer to revive and infuse them with fel magic. The orcs raid several settlements throughout Azeroth. Anduin Lothar, commander of the human forces of Stormwind Kingdom, finds a trespassing mage named Khadgar investigating the bodies of the slain men, who explains that the bodies contained traces of fel magic. Stormwind's king, Llane Wrynn, sends them to the stronghold Karazhan to inform Medivh, the Guardian of Tirisfal, of the fel magic's presence on Azeroth.

Lothar, Khadgar, and Medivh join a scouting team following traces of fel magic, but are ambushed by orcs. Medivh uses a spell to kill the fel-corrupted orcs, leaving the Horde's warchief, Blackhand, to flee along with Durotan and Orgrim. The team takes a half-orc slave, Garona, as prisoner, but Llane releases her in exchange for loyalty to Stormwind. Garona leads the humans to spy on the orc camp, where they learn of Gul'dan's plan to bring the Horde to Azeroth. While studying a book found in Medivh's library, Khadgar realizes that Gul'dan had help from someone on Azeroth opening the portal. Despite Orgrim's objections, Durotan meets with Llane secretly to unite the Frostwolf Clan and the humans against Gul'dan, but the group is ambushed by Blackhand. Medivh forms a magical barrier to protect the humans' retreat, but Lothar's son Callan is separated from the group and killed by Blackhand. Medivh is weakened, and Garona and Khadgar take him back to Karazhan to recover. After noticing Medivh's eyes shine green, Khadgar realizes that he has been corrupted by fel magic and that he is the one who helped Gul'dan. At the orc camp, Blackhand purges the Frostwolf Clan. Orgrim helps Draka to escape, and she sends Go'el down a river in a basket, but is found and killed.

Durotan challenges Gul'dan to Mak'gora, a duel to the death for leadership of the orcs. During the fight, Gul'dan violates the honorable combat rules by draining the life out of Durotan with his magic, killing him and earning the disapproval of the orcs watching, and he empowers Blackhand with the same magic. Medivh, now in a half-demonic state, starts to open the portal to Draenor, and Gul'dan begins sacrificing the captured human villagers to allow the rest of the Horde to enter Azeroth. Llane leads the human army in an assault on the orc camp, while Lothar and Khadgar fight Medivh and destroy the demon that had begun to manifest on the outside. Medivh is mortally wounded, and uses the last of his strength to close the portal to Draenor and instead open a portal to Stormwind, allowing Llane to evacuate most of the freed prisoners. Medivh dies and the portal closes, leaving Llane, Garona, and a small number of human soldiers to fight the orcs. Llane secretly orders Garona to kill him, bringing her honor among the orcs and putting her in a position of power to bring peace between the two races. Garona reluctantly does so and is welcomed into the Horde by Gul'dan. Lothar arrives to retrieve King Llane's body, but is confronted by Blackhand, who challenges Lothar to Mak'gora, with Lothar defeating him. Against Gul'dan's demands, the orcs, bound by tradition, allow Lothar to depart with Llane's body.

During Llane's funeral, the leaders of the other human nations, along with the high elves and dwarves, proclaim an alliance against the orcs and support Lothar as the leader of the Alliance. Elsewhere, Orgrim takes one of Durotan's tusks to one day give to Go'el, and the basket containing Go'el is found by a human.

Production

Development and Pre-production

The project was officially announced in May 2006 with Blizzard initially wanting it to be set in the universe of the real-time strategy Warcraft: Orcs and Humans video game from 1994. This setting was later dropped because Blizzard decided that it would be too similar to The Lord of the Rings. Initially scheduled for a 2009 release, the film would not see a release in that year. By Comic-Con 2011, the film was announced to still only be in the development stage.

Uwe Boll made a bid to direct, but was turned away by Blizzard, who he claims to have said, "We will not sell the movie rights, not to you… especially not to you. Because it's such a big online game success, maybe a bad movie would destroy that ongoing income, what the company has with it." Sam Raimi was initially attached to direct, but was replaced by Duncan Jones in January 2013. Upon coming aboard, Jones immediately voiced his displeasure at the script, which he stated "was the stale fantasy trope of, humans are the good guys, monsters are the bad guys". With Blizzard's approval (who had also been looking to change the story), Jones altered the story so that "It's 50-50." Jones also faced personal struggles during filming, as his wife was diagnosed with breast cancer soon after Jones took over, and his father, David Bowie, died from cancer late in production. Jones thus summed up the challenge by telling The New York Times, "My film started and ended with cancer." At San Diego Comic-Con International in July 2013, a concept trailer was presented, featuring a battle between a human and an orc.

Paul Dano, Travis Fimmel, Anson Mount, and Anton Yelchin emerged as the frontrunners for the lead role, with Fimmel winning the role in October 2013. On December 4, 2013, the main cast of the film, consisting of Fimmel, Ben Foster, Paula Patton, Dominic Cooper, Toby Kebbell and Robert Kazinsky, was announced. Idina Menzel, Debbie Gibson, Julie Delpy, Alison Eastwood and Leighton Meester were also considered for the role of Garona Halforcen. On December 14, 2013, Universal added Daniel Wu and Clancy Brown to the cast. In early March 2014, newcomer Burkely Duffield joined the cast.

Filming

Principal photography began on January 13, 2014, and lasted for four months, finishing on May 23, 2014. Filming took place primarily in Vancouver, among other locations. Post-production lasted twenty months. Regarding the use of computer-generated imagery, Jones said, "It's a tool like any other. It can be done well and it can be done shit. The best CGI has you forgetting that it's CGI, and accepting the visual as whatever it is supposed to be—like props. No one has an issue with props in film, do they?" Cinematographer Simon Duggan stated the film had a long prep of about 12 weeks, in addition to the 18 weeks of shooting.

Music

Warcraft: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack is the soundtrack. This music was composed by Ramin Djawadi and released on June 10, 2016. Djawadi was hired by Jones and Legendary Pictures in October 2014. The vinyl version of the soundtrack was released on September 5, 2016.

Release/Reception/Box Office

Warcraft was set to be released on December 18, 2015, but following the announcement of the coinciding release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, the release was pushed back to the following year. The film premiered at the Le Grand Rex in Paris on May 24, 2016. It was released in the United Kingdom on May 30, 2016, in the United States on June 10, 2016 and in Australia on June 16, 2016.

Warcraft was released on digital download on September 13, 2016, and was released on Blu-ray, Ultra HD Blu-ray, Blu-ray 3D and DVD on September 27 in the United States and Canada. Select editions of the physical release include a digital copy of World of Warcraft along with digital bonus codes for other Blizzard games to tie-in with the film.

On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 28% based on 232 reviews with an average rating of 4.4/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Warcraft has visual thrills to spare, but they – and director Duncan Jones' distinctive gifts – are wasted on a sluggish and derivative adaptation of a bestselling game with little evident cinematic value." However, the movie garnered a rating of 78% from audience scores. On Metacritic, the film has a score of 32 out of 100 based on 40 critics, indicating "generally unfavourable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.

Geoff Berkshire of Variety criticized the film's attempts at adapting a source material with "inherent ridiculousness" with regard to how the original game series was not meant to have a very deep narrative: "It's an unwaveringly earnest film that never owns up to exactly how campy every character, every conflict and every new realm truly is." A.A. Dowd of The A.V. Club wrote that, "To watch Warcraft is never to be transported, but to wade through a thick morass of mythology, exposition, gaudy light-show effects, half-assed character development, and formulaic franchise groundwork," while describing director/cowriter Duncan Jones as "a talented sci-fi fabulist who’s fallen screaming into the same CGI abyss that consumed Peter Jackson during his unfortunate Hobbit cycle." Helen O'Hara, reviewing for British GQ, stated that although the film itself is a "strong adaptation" of Warcraft, the script diminishes the film's impact: "The problem is that it just can't escape those cod-fantasy roots. There are too many mysterious proper nouns being thrown into conversation and at least 12 major characters competing for space… We're zipping from one to another here so quickly that they only have time for the most portentous, and sometimes clichéd, dialogue."

Conversely, Sheri Linden of The Hollywood Reporter gave a more favourable review, citing the performances and story as highlights. Brian Truitt of USA Today also gave praise towards the acting, particularly Kebbell's performance as Durotan. "Kebbell’s performance showcases the nuances of a father gripped by the no-win situation of having no home and his family in constant danger." Truitt also stated that he found it was not necessary for viewers of the film to have prior knowledge of the Warcraft series to enjoy the film.

Warcraft grossed $47.4 million in the United States, and $391.7 million in other countries, for a worldwide total of $439 million. Given its $160 million production budget and additional $110 million spent on promotions, the film needed to earn $450–500 million in order to break-even. In July 2016, The Hollywood Reporter said the film lost the studio around $15 million, although noted several executives put the losses in the $30–40 million range. Worldwide, it is the highest-grossing film of all time based on a video game (breaking Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time's record). It is the first video game film to cross $400 million in ticket sales globally, and is also one of the few Hollywood releases to earn $100 million in China without making $100 million in the United States.

In the United States and Canada, Warcraft opened on June 10, 2016, alongside The Conjuring 2 and Now You See Me 2, and was projected to gross around $25 million in its opening weekend. Variety reported that the film was generating only moderate interest among U.S. moviegoers, which could possibly hurt its box office performance stateside, with poor reviews and competition from the aforementioned films and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows (released the week prior) also affecting its performance. The film grossed $3.1 million from 2,632 theatres in its Thursday night previews and $10.7 million on its first day. It went on to gross $24.2 million, finishing second at the box office behind The Conjuring 2 ($40.1 million). It fell by 70% on its second weekend, earning $7.2 million.

Budget $160 million

Box office $439 million

My Review

You can be certain Warcraft is going to have a lot of fans. People that like fantasy movies with a lot of strange creatures and magic spells will love this movie. And gamers that play the video game World Of Warcraft will also like this movie. I didn't play World Of Warcraft yet but after seeing the movie I'm tending to do so if I have to be honest. If the game has the same story and good graphics as the movie then I will be sold. The story in Warcraft is what you expect from a good fantasy movie. All ingredients are there, like Dwarfs, Orcs, half breeds, magicians and so on. The CGI's are great and now I wished I saw it in the theater instead of my big television screen. The cast is good as well. There's clearly going to be more of them and I will for sure watch them. On the other hand people that don't like fantasy movies are probably think this is a lame movie. So just think about it before you start watching it. Do you like fantasy or not?

There were several constraints that the movie had to work with. There was the already established Warcraft mythos and stories, there was the terrible stigma of game adaptations and finally there was the matter of so many main CGI characters that had to look realistic, not like something Pixar or Disney designed. Given that, I was not expecting much.

Yet the movie exceeded all my expectations and gave me hope for the future. The story is something placed at the end of chapter III of the mythos and the beginning of chapter IV. In game, it is the story of Warcraft I, which was another bold move, considering the hordes (heh heh heh) of World of Warcraft players that weren't even born when that game was published. It pits the peaceful kingdom of Azeroth vs the war clans of the unknown Orc, fleeing from their dying world through a portal fueled by the very thing that destroyed it. A half human, half orc girl is instrumental in providing information about who the Orcs are, what they want and how they have reached the kingdom.

Characters were well developed, graphics were good, the script had few holes and the mature story was clearly well smoothed out. The only problem one could have is that it's just the first part in many, with the main conflict point resolved, but none for the character story lines.

Actors came from all kinds of TV series, Vikings, Preacher and Legends of Tomorrow to name a few. The only predominantly big screen actor out there was Ben Foster. It shows both the direction of cinema and TV blending together (and perhaps with games) and the fear of well established cinema actors getting caught in unsuccessful game adaptations. Perhaps with the success of this and - one may only hope - Assassin's Creed, things will begin to change.

For an adaptation of a popular game, this is pretty fun. It tries to do both sides justice (good and bad are a fine line, when you get both perspectives), which may anger a couple of people, but is a nice touch. I have only played the original Warcraft games and never got around to the World of Warcraft one. Which on one hand is a good thing of course, considering how much time I would have been online playing.

So I can't really compare what is being taken from the game and what they left out (heard some people complaining about missing characters). But you can imagine that a movie can not hold everything in it. Maybe there are (or were?) plans to include some things in a sequel. I doubt there will be one, considering the Box Office this made (or rather didn't make). Still if you like Fantasy and Science Fiction, you could do a lot worse. This is really fun. 8.1/10