Visually impressive but slow and underdevelopped

Rating: 7/10 (12 June 2016)

As far as computer game movies go it's one of the better ones, but as most game movie are total sh1t that isn't saying much... I had very high hopes for this one as the director is no one less then Duncan Jones, director of gems like 'Moon' and 'Source Code'. Jones also claims to be a Warcraft fan and the meaty 160m$ budget should alow to visualize most they can think of without monetary constraints. Well, first the good things: the movie looks pretty awesome. The cinematography is great, the colors and production design are very consistent with the game and the CGI Orcs (courtesy of ILM) are almost photoreal and neatly integrated into the live action footage. So an A+ for eye candy. But that's where the good news stops. The movie plot is just to thin for a 123 minute movie and there are so many scenes where nothing is happening. Characters are just talking their face off but they aren't saying anything useful or aren't advancing the plot. The characters themselves are rather shallow. Sometimes when they die you won't care one bit. The Orc Durotan and Garona are fleshed out the best, but the humans are one sad cardboard bunch. This as you can imagine makes the movie a bit boring and quite slow at times. There seems very little at stake and almost not tension buildup. Has Duncan Jones actually seen his own previous movies? Jones said this is supposed to be a franchise but it should have gotten a better start to keep people interested. If they make a sequel it will be for the Chinese I'm sure.