The world crafts war.

Rating: 7/10 (10 October 2016)

Talking to a friend about what her son was interested in,I found out that he is a big fan of Massively multiplayer online role-playing games.Learning the most basic elements of the franchise,I was delighted to see that the Warcraft movie had reached DVD,which led to me entering the world of Warcraft.
The plot:
Finding their planet Draenor to be in ruins,Orcs start using magic to enter the human kingdom of Azeroth in order to take human souls to power portals to other worlds. Pushing their doubts aside, Durotan and his pregnant wife Draka join the Orcs.Giving birth to a stillborn,Draka's child comes back to life after being revived with magic.As they continue the purge,some of the Orcs start to suspect that the portals are doing more harm than good to their planet,which leads to a group secretly splintering to craft a war of peace with the humans.
View on the film:
Taking on his first franchise,co-writer/(along with Charles Leavitt) director Duncan Jones decides to take on the extra challenge of the title being part of the "difficult" Video Game adaptation genre. Swooping down on the human V Orcs battles,Jones and cinematographer Simon Duggan attack the scenes with an almighty crunch,throwing orcs across the screen as the human armour rattles. Backed by a mythical score from Ramin Djawadi, Jones contrasts the thump from the action scenes with a dip into the traditional Fantasy of the Once and Future King's Merlin,as arrows of blue and zombie-style green spells are fired above smooth crane shots tracking the crafting of the war.
Extensively re-writing the script when he got the job,the screenplay by Charles Leavitt & Duncan Jones strikes an even-handed approach at looking at the conflict from both sides,from doing very well at rooting the humans in a Medieval age to tensely exposing the dissident voices in the Orc army.Digging into the personal tragedies unfolding in the middle of the war,the writers never get a clean grip on the scale of the events,with each battle on the field and in the kingdom being individualistic,and lacking the feeling of being part of a grand historically struggle. Joined by a snarling Dominic Cooper as Llane Wrynn, Paula Patton (who still looks sexy with a sabre-tooth!) gives a wonderful performance as Garona,thanks to Patton giving Garona a determined grit which is laced with a heavy awareness of the tragic history of the Orcs,as the first level of Warcraft is completed.