RPG + RTS - brains

Rating: 3/10 (12 September 2016)

I still remember the times around 1996, when Warcraft II was my first big computer game love. I didn't know much English, so the story briefings between missions were mostly just a text scrolling upwards. The mission goals also weren't making sense most of the time. But the action was fun! Train a pack of infantry units and send them kill someone. Zug-zug, job's done!
Now, 20 years from then, the Warcraft universe has expanded into a huge cash-making factory, going so far from its RTS roots that it even includes a movie now. Well, the funny thing is, when I was watching that movie, I felt like that ignorant kid again. But this time the game I was offered to play lacked any excitement.
If there's a list of typical fantasy film mistakes, Warcraft has made most of them. The characters are introduced with the same neglect as some game NPCs, leaving you no room to guess why they are what they are and where they are. The plot progresses in a mission-like style, jumping from one location to another with hardly enough glue to put it all together. And the dialogues are an embarrassing mix of fake second-rate epic clichés and equally fake tearjerking tirades compared to which the soap opera drama feels truly Shakespearean. Combined, all of that makes you guess whether Warcraft was an Uwe Boll creation.
It's not that horribly bad though. The cast is rather fresh and not taken from an old moldy and moth-ridden wardrobe. The CGI, although sloppy at times, is up to par and not cheap. And if you really try to turn your brains off while watching it, Warcraft might even be a way to spend two hours without getting bored, especially if you can appreciate its universe and like being given an easter egg once in a while. But don't expect anything beyond that sort of popcorn entertainment, otherwise you risk being bitterly disappointed.