I have never played "World of Warcraft" or its predecessor, "Warcraft: Orcs and Humans." In fact, I wasn’t very excited about seeing this summer’s latest blockbuster, as it is a video game movie. Any film-goer or gamer knows that the terms “video game movie” and “critical darling” are seldom in the same sentence unless the word “isn’t” happens to be in between the two.
Therefore, I walked into the theater with trepidation. What I ended up seeing was a film divided.
Let me explain.
One half of the film was beautiful. The establishing shots and the orcs in this film were exquisite. It’s some of the best CGI that I have seen, and it could rival a film like James Cameron’s "Avatar" easily.
When the orcs walked onscreen, the ground practically trembled, and that was an amazing feeling. In addition, the voice acting for these orcs was wonderful. Through the CG and voice actors, creatures completely foreign to me became interesting and developed characters that I cared about. The film began to unravel for me when the humans came in at about the 10-minute mark.
Though the establishing shots were wonderful, there was something off about almost every indoor set in this film. It either looked as though the actors were standing in front of an obvious green screen or the set was made out of Styrofoam. It felt more like a college student’s film assignment than a million-dollar blockbuster.
Outdoor scenes were slightly better, but no amount of sets or graphics could save us from the hit-or-miss acting that most of the actors gave. A few seemed to have phoned in their lines while others overacted.
The difference in the quality of acting became apparent to me when characters died. Often when an orc character died, I felt upset or shocked, while when a human character died, I didn’t feel anything because they hadn’t impacted me in the least.
However, does "Warcraft" deserve the panning that it received from critics?
Absolutely not.
While watching the film, I could feel how much love was put into it and afterward, I heard a lot of fans of the games loving the references, nods and visuals.
When this movie was good, it was good. It’s worth seeing for the achievements it made in visuals and voice acting alone. And though it may be a critical flop, its success in China will hopefully lead to sequels, which I will gladly see.
