Good Fantasy Epic that *could have been* absolutely Great- but isn't...

Rating: 6/10 (1 July 2016)

Some spoilers about the story, but most spoilers are with how this movie IS/ was made. (How the acting is, how the certain scenes are shot etc). Rather than how the Story is.
I wont go too much into what the story is about in this reviews, other people have done that. Nor will i write very much about what this movie does right, other people have done that. My review will mostly focus on some of the problems with this movie.
I played some WoW, but i played a lot of Warcraft 3. Warcraft 2, but especially Warcraft 3 (both reign of chaos and the frozen throne) had a big impact on me, and I love the characters and the stories in the Warcraft universe.
The reason i write this review is because I CARE about Warcraft...
Lets begin.
The problems with this movie as what i would like to call "basic movie stuff". The effects, the CGI, the Orcs, or the story as a whole (the story on paper) ARE NOT big problems with this movie. In fact, the effects on the Orcs, and the Orc characters in general are among the best things in this movie. And the story can be EPICLY GOOD- as long as you get the basics right...
What i mean with "basic movie stuff" I mean the acting, i mean how certain characters are cast and portrayed, how certain scenes are shot, what emotional connections there are to characters from the viewers and between characters themselves. Things that are not strictly exclusive to fantasy movies, but for ANY movie with characters. Basic.
Let's take the word "plot" and lets make a verb out of that word. This Warcraft movie is pretty "plot-y".
Some examples of "basic movie stuff" problems:
1.The human main character (Lothar)'s son is just a plot device, nothing else at all.
2. The acting and casting of Lothar was at times... very bad. As with **most of the human cast.**
3. The decision Draka the orc character made when coming to a river... Lets just say it seemed to be a very light-hearted decision. The scene is fine on paper, but the situation needs to seem more desperate for the decision to make sense.
4. Some characters motivations for their actions aren't explained or even the least bit HINTED at WHAT.SO.EVER. (Even when i know there are some) If you don't already know the story, with some characters you'll just say to yourself "okay then i guess" with what their actions are. They just kind of just decided it was a good idea to do this or that. There are with these things i am annoyed at when it comes to this movie that is actually story related.
5. Some scenes are shot very... weirdly. There is this scene with Garona, the queen and Lothar in which the camera pans down on Lothars back and hes holding a gun... This scene makes zero sense. What is it trying to say? That he doesn't trust Garona??? But i mean... yeah... lets just say that it is a bit... weirdly made... And there are multiple of these kinds of scenes in this Warcraft movie. It seems as if they wanted many different minor stories and characters conflicts, so they shot these scenes, but then decided to skip them.
5.5 There is a scene close to the end of the movie that is shot in slow motion... And i get what is happening here. And i overall like the human actor. But this scene needed to be done A LOT better. The scene/ the story of the scene is fine on paper, but the way it is shot, how that line is delivered. It was almost a bit silly/ cringeworthy... Also, why the hell is there a scenes in which Medivh is half naked playing with mud. WHY
6. Its impossible for me to explain this all with 1000 word limit, but basically this movie needed to have a slower start to ease people into the world(s), and what peoples normal struggles and everyday lives are in the world(s). Basically, show the world(s)!! This is to better understand characters actions etc etc, but also some plot points, why certain things happen, why certain big decisions are made (the first example where this is kind of a problem is less than 10 mins into the movie). LOTR does this pretty good, by starting in the Shire, let us get used to the world, and understand the characters. This movie needed something similar.
I heard 40 minutes was removed from the final cut. So now we have a 2 hour 3 minute movie. This explains a lot of problems with this movie. THIS IS A FANTASY EPIC. GIVE US 3 BLOODY HOURS FFS!!
The reason my title is that this movie COULD HAVE been absolutely GREAT (LOTR levels of GREAT) is because if they would have just gotten the basic movie stuff right- the problems in this movie start to disappear. And those problems are what drags this movie down.
Credit to the Orc actors, they are what held this movie together!!
I really hope they learn from these mistakes in a potential sequel.