A good fantasy movie

Rating: 7/10 (27 May 2016)

First of, this is not a movie about World of Warcraft. The story is set around the first Warcraft game Warcraft: Orcs & Humans from 1994, and the Warcraft novels The Last Guardian, and Rise of the Horde.
Having played Warcraft 3 and the first World of Warcraft game myself I really got nostalgic about seeing the world of Azeroth and the dying world of Draenor. Was amazing to see Stormwind and looking at all the detail they had put into the world. And of course seeing The Dark Portal being built.
But I feel Blizzard have had a hard time managing to make a movie of the games. I am not surprised that it has been taking over 10 years before we finally have one. That is why it is good that Duncan Jones is the director. He is both a fan of the games, but also a good filmmaker with only the movies Moon and Source Code before Warcraft. Both are movies that I really liked.
What makes this movie more for me than just an average fantasy film that you have seen before is the orcs. Especially Durotan which for me was the best character in the movie. You feel that he has a soul and are not just a mindless monster. It goes away from the cliché in which I feel most fantasy stories orcs are portrayed.
The movie is also not just Black and White. Both the Alliance and The Horde characters are not truly good or not truly evil. You get the motivation from both sides why they must fight each other. (I must say by the way the battles in this movie are quit epic!) The Alliance wants to protect their homeland from the orcs and the orcs fights for survival. The only character that I really see as truly evil is Gul'dan who I thought was a great villain.
And the visual effects are mind blowing! ILM has done a fantastic job of making the CGI Orcs realistic. The best CGI I have seen since Avatars Na'vi.
And the movie might be more relevant than people would have thought it to be. I am thinking especially about the refugee crises in Europe and the migration to the US from Mexico.People are desperate for a better life than what they had before. Warcraft shows in some ways why some people suddenly decides to flee their homeland and travel to an unknown world.
But I have to put out some things I did not like about this movie. The actors are OK but no one really stood out as great. I liked Ben Foster as Medivh, Toby Kebbell as Durotan and Daniel Wu as Gul'dan. I thought they were the best actors. The rest was OK. A little disappointed about Travis Fimmel which I think acts better in Vikings than he did in this movie. The problem is probably because many have mostly starred in television series. And the editing is bad in some parts of the film. It jumps sometimes too quickly between characters so that you easily get lost in what is happening with one character when they cut to another one.
I was hoping for the same type of epic music like Lord of the Rings. That is type of music you could listen to and you do not need to watch the movie while you are listening to the music. But with Warcraft, none of the music is really memorable. Ramin Djawadi, the guy that made the music for Game of Thrones (which has a lot of great music in my opinion) disappoints here. I thought the only good part of the music was the theme for the orcs.
I would have also liked if the movie showed a map of Azeroth and Draenor at the start of the movie so the audience gets to know from the start how the worlds looks like. I am thinking mostly about people that do not know anything about Warcrafts lore and the games. They show a map of Azeroth one time in Stormwind, but I would have liked to see one from the start of the movie also. In a similar ways like the prologue in Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring where you get to see a map of Middle Earth to show the world.
I think some people would also find the magic silly, but I actually liked how they did it in the movie. It is a fantasy film after all.
If people feel that they did not get to know the orcs in this movie I would recommend reading the book Warcraft: Durotan: The Official Movie Prequel. The book is a prequel to the movie and you get to know Durotan, Draka, Orgrim and the rest of the Frostwolf clan a lot better. The book ends right before the movie starts. I felt if you have not read the book the movie does a poor job of introducing who they are and showing their way of life.
Warcraft is not as good as Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones, but it stand on its own as a good fantasy film. And there are a lot of Easter eggs for the fans of the games to look for. I think mostly people that are fans of the games will like the movie, but I thought Duncan Jones managed to make it so people that knows nothing of the Warcraft games and world would enjoy it too. Looking forward to a sequel to this movie if this one is a success and hopefully the next one can improve the mistakes of this one.