Entertaining, but DVD level stuff.

Rating: 7/10 (29 January 2017)

Warcraft Movie review
Well for some reason I knew that they would screw up the Warcraft movie, a good story, plenty of money and I just knew they would fail. Part of the problem with these "Go to film" adaptations is that the executives who are making the film have no interest in making a good movie, they just want to get the minimum out there to fleece the fans who are going to watch it. Another thing that goes wrong with these films is the "hand off", you go from someone who knows and created the thing to someone who doesn't understand or may not even like the franchise. Please save us from the guy who says "You may know games but I know movies." :P Some games are almost interactive movies.
So where do I start? The Orcs are WAY TO BIG. How are you supposed to fight a war movie, sword and shield, when these things can swat an elite fully armored knight away like a gnat? This is some idiot's idea of trying to make the Orcs seem terrifying. You could have achieved the same thing in a dozen different ways (Bringing in a few Ogre's, spell casters or a lesser worm, for instance) but, no, he had to go the stupid way.
Also, the director of Warcraft has no idea how to craft a battle. Trained knights and the best Wizard in the realm walk right into an ambush? Not only that, mostly all the knights get, swatted down without ever putting up a fight. It may be expedient but it's not war craft.
Other problems, magic played too much of a central role. Weapons, even magical ones, play a central role in WoW, here we see a big sword that might not even be magical. Seriously, Star Wars, launches a whole genre off of bad ass sword fights and these guys decide to skip it. The biggest problem by far was the concept "The beginning". Why start out small when you could go big? Really big. When you get your chance up at bat, you don't just say "This is a prequel.", a warm up for the real thing.,you swing for the bleachers. With very little effort they could have presented the conflict as world wide, with a host of Orcs and other things pouring through the portal and an alliance of Men, Dwarfs and Elves joining together to defeat them. Instead of having an Army dive in to prevent the invasion, you could have had a desperate charge to the portal to end it.
Entertaining? Yes, if you like the genre. Good? Not very. About a 7.5 out of 10. Could have been much better.