Review of Warcraft (2016) by Amit M — 15 Sep 2016

WARCRAFT.

Hardly familiar with the Video Game series but fond of director Duncan Jones, Warcraft sat in my vision simply as a potential guilty pleasure.

As with any film adapted from a video game, Warcraft stumbles into terribly misguided territory. Unfortunately, it's not the kind you'd expect from such an adaptation. The film doesn't end up being too much of a video game to successfully transition between media, rather it becomes one of the most dreary and esoteric political debates stretch into feature length. It's a feat that few people have ever accomplished, but Duncan Jones actually finds a way to do it. I never thought that Duncan Jones was the right choice for the director of Warcraft. Given that his two feature-length films to date have both been small-budget science fiction films focused more on providing thought provoking concepts than visual thrills, a multi-million dollar production like Warcraft sounded far from his finest area of expertise. You can tell that he attempts to implement in his best talents by making an effort to humanise the characters on both sides to the battle, but there is no depth that comes from any of this. There are attempts to explore political themes and the concept of honour within the war-themed context of the narrative, but the script in Warcraft is ultimately just plain awful.

The trailer made Warcraft look like it was going to just be one long battle scene. In actuality, there could not have been less action in Warcraft. Even though it is indebted to the success of the Lord of the Rings films in establishing a market for (2001-2003), the film actually fails extremely heavily because it doesn't adhere to the formula of that series. While it pretends to be a commercially friendly medieval fantasy with its derivative context and a trailer full of action scenes, Duncan Jones has instead crafted Warcraft Episode 1: The Durotan Menace. He has cobbled together a story large in scope yet short on action, large on visuals yet short on characters. Worst of it, large on politics yet short on sensibility or originality. It's one thing to present audiences with a film which is ridiculously convoluted and self-indulgent, but to betray the generic contract of a sword and sorcery venture that was promised by the trailers is a direct stab in the back. Warcraft is all craft, no war. There is nothing interesting about what the characters, and even though the war itself is decent there is too little of it.

Warcraft is a character piece about way too many characters. In attempting to tell an even narrative about the horrors of war on all the sides fighting it, Duncan Jones cannot for the life of him decide who his protagonist is. Overloading the story with too many central characters that the film attempts to humanise regardless of how arbitrary they are to the lasting narrative, Warcraft ends up relying on an abundance of cliches to do it. This packs the film full of an excess of medieval plot points borrowed from far better films, and even some worse ones. Attempting to anchor these with the weight of melodrama and sentimentality pays no favours to the film, and so audiences are likely to find themselves confused as to what the story is trying to say or why they should give a damn. There is never any feeling of adventure in Warcraft as there is no quest, and that's the one thing that nonfans would have most likely come to experience. Unfortunately, that's not where their disappointment draws the line.

Audiences unfamiliar with the universe of Warcraft need not apply to see the film. That's not a statement advising one to avoid the film, it's a warning that you will not understand it. However good the film may be to fans of the game series, it would take some kind of groundbreaking translation device that exists only within science fiction literature to be able to decode the terminology in Warcraft. Since the great Alan Turing is not alive to provide us with any such equipment, we are instead left with a series of Shakespearean monologues spoken in Klingon. That's possibly one of the most ridiculous sentences I've ever had to say, but the fact that it is a perfectly accurate description of the language in Warcraft should say everything about the downfall of its dialogue. Characters speak too often, say too many confusing things with arbitrary purposes and fail to deliver it in much of a decipherable language. Essentially, any time that anybody talks in Warcraft is a reminder of the film's biggest fault. And since this is essentially all they do, it's a huge problem.

Beneath the mystical concepts and confusing script the action is the only thing that makes sense, and even then there are faults. The production values of Warcraft are very impressive with the scenery, production designs and costumes all providing a remarkable otherworldly atmosphere. The cinematography has a few many shots that remind us all too obviously of the film's nature as a video game adaptation rather than as a cinematic piece, but this is forgivable. Best of all is the quality of the visual effects and how detailed they are in capturing every little physical detail of the orcs without ever feeling like an animated film. The moderation of visual effects over the course of the film clearly signifies that Warcraft has more on its mind than just computer generated images, but it's the mind of someone with an unhealthy dedication to the universe of Warcraft who is detached from the concept of humanity or storytelling. When the action first reveals itself, problems are immediately clear. The intro has a very brief sword fight in which the attempts to emphasise the importance of the characters are interfered with by the lacklustre lighting which casts shadow over them with, and when they actually engage in combat everything is shot too close. We don't see the spectacle of the battle, just a lot of grunts and swift arm movements that drop in and out of the screen. This problem becomes a recurring issue throughout most of the action in the film, even if it finds a modicum of improvement during some of the better action moments. Nevertheless, it still interferes with the action potential of the feature. Of course it only does that during the few sequences in the film that actually have any action, so it's difficult to pick up on.

Warcraft boasts only occasional imagery at the best of times, and more often they are overshadowed by the poor quality story they are expressing. That just leaves the cast, and this is where the battle to be the most hammy of all the actors comes into play. It's one of the few actual battles in the film, and the winner is difficult to decide upon. It's certain that up Ben Foster is up there as his many talents seem to be a subject of sacrifice to conform into the lacklustre universe of the film. Ben Foster portrays Medivh, a mysterious guardian with magical powers. He's mysterious because of his elusive nature, but he is elusive because he attempts to hide the lack of characterisation behind a series of monotonous lines and blank facial expressions. When he reveals himself as a villain, there is no significant transition whatsoever an it's rather unsurprising actually. He is such a lifeless character that there is nothing convincing about his heroic facade nor anything intimidating about his role as a villain. And his line delivery is so bereft of any charisma that there is no sense of wisdom that comes with his mystery or anything else. Ben Foster is a lifeless face in Warcraft, and it's worse given that he is among the more notable cast members yet comes up just as short.

Paula Patton is no greater. A key hindrance in her performance is the inability to find any belief in the idea that her character is half-Orc and half-human. One of the human characters in Warcraft comments "You don't look that different to us", and that perfectly summarises the entire issue with her character. While most of the Orcs in Warcraft are extremely well-designed displays of strong CGI, Garona Halforcen is an actress in Orc amour and green body paint. In essence, she is more of a sexy cosplay model than an actual convincing character. And Paula Patton's limitations as an actress do nothing to help this. She takes on the role with one-dimensional melodrama as if she desires to be more serious than the ear of the cast, being more theatrical than she needs to be. Paula Patton isn't the worst cast member, but due to such poor costuming she is all the more memorable for it.

I'd never heard of Travis Fimmel before seeing Warcraft, but it seems as if the only justification for giving him the lead is an attempt to cash in on the fact that he looks like Leonardo DiCaprio did in his Academy Award winning performance from The Revenant. There is nothing about his performance to suggest that he fits the profile since he lacks the charisma of any kind of adventure hero or the grit of a man of action. He has the same level of spirit as essentially every other actor, and since the film cannot decide on a protagonist he blends into a stock collection of archetypes. The same goes for Dominic Cooper whose preceding appearances in Need for Speed (2014) and Dracula Untold (2014) signify that he is bent on creating a streak of terrible action films as the basis for his legacy.

The voice acting has some decent efforts though with Toby Kebbell contributing a passionate performance as Durotan and Clancy Brown returning to the world of swords and sorcery with a powerful boom in his voice. Given that I'm a huge fan of his work in Highlander (1986), learning that it was he portrayed the main antagonist was a refreshing discovery.

Warcraft boasts some impressive visual effects, but Duncan Jones' inability to adapt his passion for genuine drama into a big-budget blockbuster results in an excessively and convoluted political drama with minimal action, no compelling characters and dialogue which has no sensibility to people not obsessed with the source material.