Spectacular adaptation of the Warcraft beginning story

Rating: 9/10 (10 June 2016)

As a fan of the game World of Warcraft, I fully expected to love the film. I also feverishly hoped that it would live up to my expectations, that it would break the curse of crappy video game movies, and that it would have many, many sequels.
I was not disappointed at all! Granted, it is a fantasy film, and as such it has some of the typical fantasy tropes. Good guys fight bad guys, bad guys do bad things, and good guys try and get bad things corrected by the end.
That has been the formula for fantasy story telling since before Tolkien wrote the Lord of the Rings. The movie follows some of these familiar story lines, but goes much deeper than most into the characterizations of both sides.
Unlike Tolkien, Wacraft has over 20 years of story-telling behind it. The movie only introduces the world of Azeroth, and sets up the start of what could be many movies to delve into the rich lore and history of the Warcraft world.
The movie did a great job introducing the Orcs and showing the conflict between the Humans and Orcs. It also introduced the land of Azeroth as a beautiful, green, lush paradise that was ripe for the taking by the Horde.
Like I said, the CGI was spectacular. The Orcs looked totally real, and I forgot they were even CGI creatures after the first few minutes.
The settings were amazingly rich and diverse, from the flyovers of Stormwind to the vistas of Dalaran. A lot of attention was paid to getting it right.
Although it is thoroughly enjoyable if you have never played the game, you will be pleasantly surprised to see the fan service in the film. From the brief appearance of Murlocs to the discussion of the Polymorph spell, things are inserted all through the film to show how much care Duncan Jones put into his movie. He really shot from the heart.
Go see the movie. It is amazing, and deserves your patronage. Hopefully, if it does well enough, it will be a series of 4-5 films that can fully flesh out the world of Azeroth.