Not sure if I watched a film or the actual video game

Rating: 5/10 (16 August 2018)

Firstly, I've not played Warcraft so unlike most reviewers here giving glowing reviews, I am unbiased.
The first problem I have is that for the first half hour I had no idea what the bloody hell was going on! There was a small voice over explaining that a war had been going on for a long time but that was it, if like me you are unfamiliar with the world you'll be none the wiser. Having said that after the initial confusion I did get the gist enough to enjoy the story as the film progressed.
Secondly, there is very little character development and I found it very hard to sympathise with the human characters, I didn't really care if they lived or died. Conversely the Orc's development worked well and because of this I found myself siding with the characters that were technically the bad guys.
Now, the biggy... there is so much CGI. Admittedly on the most part at least, it is unquestionably well done but I would say that for three quarters of the movie the only real things on screen are the human actors. It makes me question if this is a live action movie or an animated movie with human characters inserted. What's more it's unnecessary - LOTR managed a 12 hour trilogy with convincing Orcs in prosthetics. The Orcs size here could have been augmented with CGI of course, and the fantasy landscapes needn't have been full CGI either. The film suffers because of a 'CGI it because we can mentality. Thing is though, the non-CGI sets looked like they were lifted from an Erroll Flynn Robin Hood movie of the 1940s with obvious Styrofoam castle walls that screamed cheap. Not enough money left after paying the techies for their pixel magic maybe?
Then we come to the actors. Don't get me wrong the acting is fine though they do suffer from a script full of quasi-medieval English (I half expected a "forsooth" or a "wherefore art"), but the casting people just seem to have raided every popular TV series going without casting a single A list star save for a pointless cameo from Glenn Close. Maybe after investing in the sets they should've diverted some CGI budget into casting?
So, yes, I have a few problems with the film but it has to be said I enjoyed it. Once I figured out what was going on I got into it. The story is pretty good and benefits from not being a typical 'humans good, other species bad' fantasy film with half the focus (and better development) given to 'the bad guys'. Travis Fimmel does seem to be playing Ragnar Lothbrök without the accent but it's not a huge issue. I don't think it counts as a spoiler to say that they're clearly setting up a sequel at the end, and I will give it a watch.
An average fantasy movie that does have many faults but there is hope that this could develop into an enjoyable franchise.