WARCRAFT (2016) * ½

I had pretty much gotten out of gaming by the time the whole World of Warcraft craze hit.  I think it even stopped being a phenomenon by the time this film adaptation came out.  Having never played the game, I really have nothing to compare it to.  To me, it plays like a third-rate version of Lord of the Rings.  Or perhaps a second-rate Dungeons and Dragons.  Either way, it doesn’t really work.  Die-hard WOW fans’ mileage will vary.

The special effects are the big stumbling block.  I mean, the scope of Duncan (Moon) Jones’ film is quite ambitious.  I’m sure it takes thousands of technicians sitting around computers to make such a sprawling, CGI-heavy epic like this.  It’s just that it’s maybe a bit too ambitious for its own good.  The various orc designs only occasionally look near-photo realistic.  Most of the time though, they look so cartoony that it just feels like you’re watching a video game.  Imagine if the Hulk dressed up in D & D cosplay and that might give you an idea of what these orcs look like.

On the human side of things, there’s no one to really root for, mostly because they’re your basic underdeveloped kings, knights, and magicians you’d see in this sort of thing.  The typically intense Ben Foster is hilariously miscast as a Merlin-type wizard, which doesn’t help.  The fact that he’s played by Foster kind of tips off that he’ll eventually turn into your more typical Foster character late in the game.  The only one who comes close to leaving an impression is Paula Patton as the half-orc slave who betrays her people to help the humans.  

Warcraft is watchable for the first half-hour or so.  Then it just gets bogged down with a lot of boring backstabbing and double-crossing subplots between the various species.  The big Braveheart-style battles in the finale don’t do much to pique your interest either.  I will admit, the cheesy-looking Golem that pops up near the end is kind of cool, if only because it resembles an old school stop-motion monster.  Maybe that’s what’s missing from the film; a bit of that old school moviemaking magic.  With all the state-of-the-art effects at Jones’ disposal, all we get is a film that’s about as much fun as watching somebody else playing a video game.

AKA:  Warcraft:  The Beginning.