A Rushed and Messy Film

Rating: 5/10 (13 June 2016)

The film adaptations of video games have, up to this point, been bad but there was hope for the gamer community that Warcraft could break through, but it was, in my opinion a disappointment. The potential impact of this film was obvious, gamers who are hungry for high quality film adaptations of their favorite games, are still waiting for a film to prove that it can be done. Warcraft is clichéd, poorly written, and not as entertaining or deep as it could and therefore should have been. I don't want people thinking I hated this movie, because it did some things well and plenty of people have said they enjoyed it, I simply didn't.
The most painful thing about the movie was that it had a lot of good aspects, but as a whole the film felt a little weak. One major problem I had with this film was that it reminded me too much of Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit. Regardless of the agitation that statement will incur out of die hard fans, one prime example is the main antagonist of the film, the orcs, ride around on giant evil looking wolves, just like in Lord of the Rings. Above that the film as a whole looked too digitized, where in certain scenes, everything in the scene looked digitally created.
The movie was directed by the immensely talented Duncan Jones, and to be honest the world he creates, is very intriguing. However, the script was a major weakness of this film, because inside this film is a cool story worth telling but it was overcrowded with weak characters and muddled storytelling. The film leaps around so much, trying very hard to tell a dense story, that it becomes very hard to follow, and almost impossible to care about any characters. From a technical standpoint it jumps around so much, that at times the film disregards explanation.
The weak story, and rushed pacing make the film feel overcrowded, and hard to really enjoy. While some of the characters had very cool development, many of them flash through for momentary exposition and then disappear for 20 minutes. The orc villain is admittedly cool to look at, albeit a little one dimensional, but the overall evil force in the film is essentially an unexplained force. The film really never feels like it entertains or challenges like Jones' other films (Moon and The Source Code), it just trudges forward.
It isn't a terrible film, and I'm guessing many will enjoy this film, if for no other reason than that it is a good 2 hour escape from reality. That being said for those who are looking for a entertaining, witty, original film this just isn't really that, as it never allows itself to delve deeply into any scene. The film features a great amount of potential, which only serves to make the muddled end result even more depressing, as the film clearly could have been better. All-in- all I think kids will like this film, but for those who want a great film, this just isn't quite that.