Sensible review from a movie-lover and long time wow-player

Rating: 6/10 (3 June 2016)

Once you've plowed through all the tens and zeros fans and haters brand on frankly any movie these days, you might be looking for a sensible review if you haven't thrown your arms in the air yet by now.
Well, let me make an attempt. As a movie, Warcraft fails on a few levels. As a fanpiece there's enough there to make you smile and enjoy the world you're already very familiar with...except there where the lore takes off in a direction I can't for the life of me remember happening that way.
The movie suffers somewhat from an all too familiar ailment when making these epic multi-character stories. Not enough investment in the characters leads to you not caring for them at all. The story centers largely around Lothar, Garona, Khadgar and Durotan. Now for people who are familiar with Warcraft lore, there's not a lot to fill in for you. You know these characters and what their feats have been, you have already an emotional investment in them even before the movie started. For people who are not familiar with them however, the movie largely fails to deliver on that front. I went to see with a friend, who is not familiar with the universe, and at the end he admitted not caring for any of the characters in the movie. There is no real exposition of who these characters are and what they believe in, except maybe for Durotan, who gets a little more color. They were also looking for a female lead and I guess Garona was it, for lack of any other alternative. She gets a bit pasted onto the story, and gets more screen-time than her character actually deserves story-wise. Good stories are either plot driven or character driven. It becomes a bit of a mess if the story can't really decide which one it wants to be, which is the case in Warcraft. It tries to tell us who these character are, but we don't get deep enough into any of them for them to drive the movie; and the plot is not really all that impressive either, there is no intrigue or suspense, just a lot of clobbering, the occasional spellcast and a bit of character parading. Stories are driven, because they should literally move you emotionally from one place to another, be it through a fear, an anticipation, through experiencing a characters emotional change, etc. None of that was present in Warcraft.
The acting is not very good. In fact the acting of the cgi orcs was far better than most human performances. The human side lacked a bit of presence, while the orcs are quite impressive. Travis and Paula do what they can with the little they have. Again due to a lack of character development, which even a romantic nudge between the two and the storyline with Anduins son can't help, they remain very two-dimensional. Seasoned actors will often fill that void themselves with what they believe should be the character, but that's not a given when working with a fairly young cast. I've seen better performances from most these actors in other movies.
The music is one of the better things in the movie, from Game of Thrones composer Ramin Djawadi. The score definitely felt Warcraft. The cinematography is not bad, and manages in this cgi heavy setting to deliver some awesome pictures. Fans will smile at accurate depictions of familiar settings...even flightpoints in Stormwind.
Overall, this is a fanfilm. You'll enjoy the familiarity of it's settings and you'll fill in the blanks with your own knowledge and in the end you'll find it OK. For movie-lovers without any warcraft knowledge however, this movie will not entice you at all.