Pleasantly surprised!

Rating: 7/10 (26 June 2016)

Yesterday, by chance, I saw the new Warcraft movie in the local theater. I have never played any of the Warcraft games (nor any other Blizzard game for that matter), so I wasn't particularly planning on seeing this one on the big screen. Knowing how live-action adaptions of video games (or any other animated media) have a tendency to turn out complete failures, I went in without any expectations. I was however pleasantly surprised! Sadly this movie is getting panned on a lot of platforms, which is a pity since I found this movie to be much better than expected. So I decided it was only right to give this film a positive review from a non-fan.
Fans of the games obviously love this film but it has enough to offer even for people like me who are completely new to the Warcraft universe. Of course if you're expecting to see the next Lord Of The Rings or Game Of Thrones, you'll leave the theater a disappointed viewer, but the charm of this movie is that it doesn't aspire to be the next groundbreaking fantasy epic. It doesn't try to hide it's video game origins either, rather it stays true to it's roots, which works very much to its advantage. Storywise some expected fantasy clichés are present, but at the same time it takes enough unexpected turns to maintain the balance and keep the viewers interested. The characters as well, though having their roots in fantasy stereotypes, have enough complexity to keep them from being caricatures and places them somewhere on the axis in between good and evil rather than at one end or the other. I particularly enjoyed having sympathetic characters on both sides of the fence.
Visually the movie is stunning as well. Blizzard, being notorious for it's high quality cinematics, and Industrial Light & Magic, known for breaking new grounds in VFX, let their expertise shine through abundantly. Although I was initially skeptic of the live-action approach, preferring the movie would have been made completely animated (like their famous cinematics), they pulled off the blend of real actors and mo-cap creatures surprisingly well and all actors involved gave decent performances. The design of the characters and the environments as well is one of the best things about this film, no doubt the merit of Blizzard's renowned team of concept artists.
I've heard complaints about the pacing and editing of the film, but despite the 2 hour run time I didn't feel any problems in this area myself. I am of course not familiar with the lore surrounding Warcraft, so I can't really tell which parts of the greater story were cut or rushed and which ones were dragged. In this regard it might even be an advantage to watch this movie as a newcomer to the series. The ending ties up the story arc pretty well, but leaves enough out in the open for a possible sequel (which I very much hope to see).
If you're not a fan of the games, Warcraft won't blow you off your feet, but it's a very good film nevertheless that does what it set out to do with great style!