Lost in Space '98 Levels Of Imbecilic

Rating: 2/10 (4 November 2018)

Warcraft may possibly be the dumbest big budget Hollywood film since Battlefield Earth, without any of its precious unintentional comedy. That's not to say it's the worst one since Battlefield Earth, there are many more worthy of that title, but from a sheer case of internal and emotional logic, Warcraft is the most mindbogglingly idiotic trainwreck I've seen since. It's a visually ugly, humorless, braindead catastrophe that could be outwritten by a 9 year old with one of the worst endings I've ever seen. Additionally, it gets worse the more I actually think about it. The film has been in development Hell since the mid-2000s with Uwe Boll offering to direct and, honestly, I may have turned out preferring his film. At least I could laugh at how bad that one might have been. In its current state, Warcraft is just tedious.
The first thing to know about Warcraft is that nearly the entire film is exposition and world building. It feels less like an actual movie and more like an introductory video game cutscene. Warcraft doesn't care about developing its characters or making them relatable and interesting and complex. It's far more interested in shoving in as many Easter eggs to in game locations and lore as they can. Those two things should exist to strengthen the story and the characters, not the other way around. Even as a casual fan of the games, I could care less about how faithful it is the source material when there is nothing close to a coherent narrative.
Remember in my Spider-Man 3 review where I said the characters behaved the way they did to service the plot and not out of any actual emotional logic or reasoning? Imagine that x100 and you have Warcraft. Garona is the adult daughter of a human and an Orc despite Orcs only just beginning to interact with humans. Anduin and Garona fall in love immediately despite sharing nothing in common and having only about 2 scenes of highly limited interaction with each other. There's a scene where the evil Orc warlock Gul'dan cheats in an honor duel to which the Orcs are somehow surprised at his lack of honor. Why they would be surprised by the dishonorable actions of a monster who literally devours the life of entire worlds, I have no idea. The film then builds up this moment as if it's going to be a major turning point in the story, only for Gul'dan to kill the first Orcs to dissent to his rule and for the story to continue and Orcs remain loyal as if nothing happened. The King's brilliant solution to bring peace between Orcs and humans is to have Garona, the only Orc who humans seem to unanimously trust, kill him to prove herself to the Horde...And then the Orcs and humans go to war anyway. The entire film really is headache inducingly preposterous, I could hardly believe what I was witnessing. I do strongly remember slowly sinking into my theater seat in embarrassment for calling myself a fan of this franchise as I watched this unparalleled idiotfest unfold.
So everything I just listed sounds pretty stupid and incoherent, does it not? You may be thinking that it may at least be bad in an entertaining way. Unfortunately, unlike the aforementioned Battlefield Earth, the actors aren't having nearly enough fun or energy to make the film enjoyable even on an ironic level. Paula Patton, Toby Kebbell and Clancy Brown are at least serviceable in their voice-heavy, animalistic portrayals of Orcish characters, but everyone else is clearly phoning it in. Travis Fimmell, Ben Foster and even the exceptionally talented Dominic Cooper are all sleep walking through this travesty, none of them are giving their best effort at all. This was very much a "Read the lines, take the paycheck" role for these actors. If the film was this much of a slog to force myself through as an audience member, I can only imagine the agonizing nightmare it was to film. Thank Christ that God awful sequel bait ending never went anywhere.
Another thing worth noting is just how ugly the film is. As much as I hated The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, it at least somewhat had its own identity. If I was flipping through channels and managed to catch a Lord of the Rings movie on TV, I would know it was a Lord of the Rings movie. If I saw this on TV, I'd probably think it was a Malefecent spinoff. That or one of those unbearable Hobbit films. There is no style to this film, no atmosphere. It looks like every crappy, half-assed fantasy film released in the past 12 years. If the film was so low on substance, the least it could have is style, but unfortunately, Warcraft has neither.
Apparently, this film is beginning to get something of a fanbase, but I can't for the life of me figure out why. Even as a fan of the games, this fan service trash hardly seems respectful. It's like the filmmakers couldn't think of a compelling story or characters so they just threw Easter eggs hoping they would stick. It's a boring, poorly acted, weakly characterized and ugly nightmare that I never want to watch again. There are so many better fantasy epics than this. There are so many better video game movies than this. I don't have to settle for this bottom-of-the-barrel dumpster fire of used diapers.