Beautiful visuals almost carried the weak plot, almost

Rating: 7/10 (19 June 2016)

So, I don't really know if this contain 'spoilers' but just in case, beware. First going into the cinema, I was pumped. My dad and I have avidly played World of Warcraft for many years and I personally have looked into the lore and read some of the books. Although I haven't played the first three Warcraft, I know a lot about what happened regarding lore. In general, the story was eh when it comes to accuracy, but the visuals were amazing. For having an 100 million dollar budget, they did good. Seeing iconic towns and areas come to the big screen in such detail was pretty great. The orcs looked pretty realistic as well so you can tell they put a lot of effort into the CGI. But its hard to say if the visuals made up for the lack of character development and very fast plot. I don't know if it was due to budgetary reasons that the movie isn't even 2 hours, but they could have made it a little longer and thus put more story behind the characters. Personally, I could follow what was happening and following the characters, but for people that have never even heard of World of Warcraft, it may have been a struggle to keep up with all of the names and pretty much who was doing what. All in all, the movie could have been amazing if the plot was as good as the visuals. Hopefully the filmmakers lived and learned because I really wouldn't mind a trilogy, not going to lie.