Imbalance on several fronts, though the technical finesse and stronger characters carry "Warcraft" to the level of amicable journey.

Rating: 6/10 (25 May 2016)

When the opening scene tells the story of Orcs in grand fashion, the wait for a true great game based movie seems to be over. However, the momentum doesn't translate to the human side, which prances about from one city to the next with heavy jargon and too many pinches of random magic. The hope is not completely gone as some characters still manage to deliver good scenes when given spotlight, but majority of the movie is spent in drab narrative.
The orc side is definitely better, the warring clan is immediately appreciable with incredible use of special effect marvel and simple yet effective motivation. Toby Kebbell as Durotan is a right choice for the leader role, this is a character whose charisma and personality audience would invest in the most.
Human fares much worse. The focus towards complex magic is not an interesting direction, yet the movie spends nearly half of its runtime with characters babbling about prophecies and dark forces. It also, commendably, tries to give political sense to the whole thing, yet it barely establishes anything and those wanting elf or other races might have to content with much less.
Travis Fimmel as Lothar does his best, and to be fair, he exhibits an enigmatic role as Ragnar from Vikings series. Lothar is another case, it's like forcing Jack Sparrow to be ordinary pirate, but Fimmel at least gives a signature poise to it. Paula Patton as the half orc Garona is perhaps the more intriguing female, she has the balance between frailty and a brave front for survival. These two carry the scenes momentarily.
Fortunately, the special effect and fights are done with considerable effort, but its liberal use of blue magic is numbing. There's a few attempts for humor or fantasy troupes, and these often come across as generic or simply distracting. While the emotional weight seems sparse, the world looks dashing enough, at least for cosmetic purpose.
As a portal to Azeroth, "Warcraft" is definitely flawed, although it's sufficiently presentable for a fantasy spectacle. It is, sadly, won't reach the greatness of Lord of the Rings, which it will be inevitably compared to, or the height the fans want.