A spectacularly beautiful, but rough around the edges fantasy superhero movie.

Rating: 7/10 (10 June 2016)

Just finished watching the movie. As a major fan of the Warcraft universe and a big Blizzard fanboy, here is my wall of text:
I have to applaud the attempt at bringing this movie to life. Similar to Civil War having a ton of characters, the insanely detailed and rich lore of Warcraft is incredibly hard to fit into a 2 hour screen time. However, unlike Civil War, Warcraft isn't that well glued together and suffers from many things a lot of critics have mentioned. Nevertheless, I think the movie has received an unfair amount of bashing and is definitely a good video game movie which follows the source material closely.
I'll start of by saying that the CGI and the motion capture is amazing. Every single orc looks unique, moves and fights appropriately for their size and is menacing just like they are supposed to be. Lord of the Rings orcs are a joke compared to these bad boys. The true Orc stars are of course Durotan (the wise, young Frostwolf clan chieftain) and Gul'dan (the sinister, demonic warlock), who each shine in their own way. Durotan is probably the best developed character in the movie and his facial expressions are jaw dropping. Gul'dan is evil incarnate. The way he sucks the souls out of his victims is flat out terrifying.
The magic in this movie is of the hook, balls to the wall, full throttle powerful. It is spectacular and a breath of fresh air compared to the lackluster, weaksauce magic you get in Harry Potter and other movies. The sorcery action clearly establishes that mages are by far the most dangerous and lethal people (and orcs) to walk Azeroth. I was afraid I was going to hate Khadgar when I saw the trailers, but surprisingly he ends up being rather compelling. The human armor is interesting, colorful and exactly what you would expect from a human army in this universe.
While the armor is beautiful and shiny, some people wearing it aren't colorful enough personalities to make it work. The king, played by Dominic Cooper, is dull, uninspiring and is unreasonably friendly and naive (just like his Queen) when it comes to the interaction with the orcs. To me it felt unrealistic that both would be so open and friendly with Garona. A lack of prejudice on the human side made that side of the conflict seem too mellow, pacifist and boring in some cases. It is clear that a lot of hatred of the orcs was cut out of the movie (there is 30-40 minutes more available in the directors cut) since it was present in the trailers. This is a shame, since racial prejudice has always been a big part of the Warcraft lore. That makes the team up moments much more sweet when they actually happen.
Other characters, specifically Medivh, Garona and Lothar are reasonable, but lack anything particularly interesting about them. They work for the movie but the performances could have been better. Specifically Lothar didn't get enough time to develop his relationship with his family. Everyone could have used a couple more minutes to give them more spice.
The pacing in the movie, as mentioned before by many other reviewers, is bad. There is a bit too much jumping around from point A to point B, making each individual scene have less of an impact. As a result, the movie is not grounded enough to have proper world building, which in my opinion was what made the first LOTR movie so good. As such, a lot of mystery and wonder is lost because the movie doesn't leave the audience enough time to process what have happened. The movie has a lot of magic, but the magic of subtlety is not one of them.
While flawed in many ways, I think this a decent first attempt by Blizzard to get into the movie business. What is great about Warcraft is that it doesn't follow a lot of terrible and boring Hollywood clichés. The Orcs are much more than just useless idiots, as they are an actual people with feelings and code of honor. The movie is bold with its plot (thanks to the story being bold) and these risks taken make it much more enjoyable. The fact that Marvel is playing it too safe with their characters is one of my greatest pet peeves.
Warcraft has stunning visuals and a couple of very great and touching moments, but suffers from a story that is too rapid fire. 7/10 for me (and 7/10 for non fans also, if anything me knowing the story makes me more critical). Hopefully this movie gets the money and we get a sequel. The potential is there to get a great one.