‘Warcraft’ Review: Swords, Sorcery and Stupidity Abound in Game Adaptation
Imagine “Battlefield Earth” without the verve and you get this sludgy, tedious fantasy adventure, a fun-starved dud that’s not even unintentionally hilarious
Alonso Duralde | May 24, 2016 @ 3:00 PM
Last Updated: May 25, 2016 @ 5:12 PM
Critics throw the term “soulless corporate filmmaking” around with abandon, but movies like “Warcraft” really manage to redefine the term. A film adaptation of the hugely popular MMORPG (that’s Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game), this latest video game adaptation ranks near the bottom of the deadly genre. Imagine “Battlefield Earth” without the verve, or the unintentional comedy, and you’ve got “Warcraft.”
With his first two films, “Moon” and “Source Code,” director Duncan Jones took high-concept science-fiction stories and spun them into taut tales that never lost sight of their characters or the toll of the extraordinary circumstances in which they’d been placed. This time around, sharing screenplay credit with Charles Leavitt (“In the Heart of the Sea”) — based on story and characters by Chris Metzen — he’s trying to wrestle with too many characters and locations and motivations and subplots, all in a movie that’s clearly intended to be but the first of many.
The result is a monument to excess, both narratively and in the ubiquity of the visual effects. Unlike, say, “The Jungle Book,” which was entirely artificial yet came off as completely organic, it’s hard to lose sight of the green-screens here, especially when the warlike Orc characters, who boast some of the least expressive character design since the aliens in “John Carter,” stand next to the film’s human beings.
Those two species wind up side-by-side when the Orc wizard Gul’dan (voiced by Daniel Wu, “Into the Badlands”) opens up a portal between their world and the magical kingdom of Azeroth, ruled over by King Llane and Lady Taria (Dominic Cooper and Ruth Negga, coincidentally also co-starring in “Preacher”). Lady Taria’s brother Anduin Lothar (Travis Fimmel, “Maggie’s Plan”) is one of Azeroth’s great warriors, although he wishes his young son weren’t following in his footsteps.
And then there’s Medivh (Ben Foster), a powerful wizard who is the Guardian of Azeroth, although young mage Khadgar (Ben Schnetzer, “Pride”) suspects that something is amiss amidst the Jedi … or rather, the Kirin Tor, the secret society of magic that protects the kingdom. On the other side, we have the mighty Durotan (voiced by Toby Kebbell, “Fantastic Four”), a deadly Orc warrior who is nonetheless a creature of principle, making his way through the portal with his pregnant wife Draka (Anna Galvin, “Smallville”), as well as human-Orc half-breed Garona (Paula Patton), whose alliances aren’t necessarily fixed.
There’s a lot of running around and yelling and scheming and go-to-the-place-and-get-the-thing-ing, but none of it is particularly entertaining; like most movie versions of games, it will no doubt leave fans of the original wishing they were in charge. For the rest of us, there’s not even that sense of fun that comes from the sort of film that plays like a small child dumping all his action figures out on the living room carpet to battle each other.
A good chunk of the disconnect can be attributed to cinematographer Simon Duggan (“The Great Gatsby”), who makes every location in “Warcraft” — from the king’s stately castle to the Orc forests to Medivh’s magical lair — look fairly artificial. Even if this was an attempt to emulate the online game, the big-screen results offer no visual pleasure. And the generically percussive action score composed by Ramin Djawadi (“Game of Thrones”) doesn’t help much either.
The cast seems mostly adrift, with only Schnetzer giving what might be considered an actual performance. The usually reliable Foster is reduced to gadding about like a prog-rock Jesus in a series of robes that make him look like he’s posing for the side of someone’s van, and poor Paula Patton gets saddled with a sad pair of novelty-store fangs. (To her credit, she makes the green body makeup work; if the Marvel Cinematic Universe ever expands to include superhero-with-a-law-degree She-Hulk, we’re looking at a real contender here.)
“Warcraft” promises, or threatens, sequels, but then so did “Super Mario Bros.” And come to think of it, if forced to watch either of these video-game movies a second time, I’d probably vote for the plumbers.
25 Movie Stars Who Were Completely Transformed by Makeup or CGI for a Role (Photos)
You'd be forgiven for not realizing that the villain in "X-Men: Apocalypse" is played by none other than Oscar Isaac, given all the blue makeup that is caked on his face. But he's not the first, nor will he be the last, star to be completely transformed on the big screen, which traditionally came via makeup but is increasingly created by state-of-the-art performance-capture technology.
Oscar Isaac is the big bad Apocalypse in "X-Men: Apocalypse," uglifying him in a way we never thought possible.
Eddie Murphy has done a lot of transformative roles, including in "The Nutty Professor" and the infamous "Norbit," which was thought to cost him an Oscar for "Dreamgirls."
John Leguizamo embodied one of the most terrifying looking movie clowns ever in "Spawn."
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Charlize Theron took on the role of Aileen Wuornos in "Monster" with both an actual transformation of her body as well as stellar makeup work to top it off. Theron won the Best Actress Oscar for the performance.
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A lot of folks watched "Tropic Thunder" without ever realizing Tom Cruise was in it, even while his character, the devious film agent Les Grossman, stole the show.
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Tim Curry plays the evil Lord of Darkness in the Ridley Scott fantasy "Legend" and, well, you can see from the picture exactly how traumatic that was for everyone who watched it. In a good way, of course.
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Gary Oldman appeared in the film "Hannibal" as the horribly mutilated Mason Verger, and we were none the wiser.
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Maybe the most shocking transformation on this list, actress Glenn Close popped up briefly in Steven Spielberg's "Hook" as a bearded male pirate.
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Of course this list had to include John Hurt starring in David Lynch's 1980 film "The Elephant Man," about the famously deformed 19th century Englishman. The Academy Awards created the "Makeup and Hairstyling" award in 1981 because of this movie.
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Unlike the other folks on this list, Andy Serkis is really best known for his motion capture performances. Gollum in the "Lord of the Rings" films was the big one, but he's been remarkable beneath a CGI overlay a number of other times, including "King Kong" and the two most recent "Planet of the Apes" films. Oh, and let's not forget his appearance as Supreme Leader Snoke in "Star Wars: The Force Awakens."
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The legacy of the "Pirates of the Caribbean" sequels probably lies entirely with Bill Nighy's incredible Davy Jones at this point.
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June's "Warcraft" movie has a lot of people playing big green orcs with tusks, including Clancy Brown as Blackhand (pictured).
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Johnny Depp's goofy prosthetic nose pops up right in the middle of Kevin Smith's "Tusk" and now it's all anyone remembers about that movie.
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"Sin City" is best remembered for its wild style of CGI, but it also contained some excellent makeup on star Mickey Rourke.
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The emotionless blue visage of Dr. Manhattan in "Watchmen" had a real face underneath: Billy Crudup's, in fact.
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"I, Robot" contained a lot of identical looking CGI robots, but one of them, Sonny, was powered by none other than Alan Tudyk.
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Usually, performance capture is something we see in big budget, serious movies, but Seth Rogen as the titular stoner alien in the R-rated comedy "Paul" is a rare exception.
Yes, Smaug the dragon in those "Hobbit" movies was a performance capture role, with Benedict Cumberbatch actually acting as the dragon.
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"John Carter" has been mostly forgotten for everything it did aside from being a huge box office flop, but, hey, it's important to remember that time Willem Dafoe played a CGI Martian.
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This summer sees several name actors disappearing into their character thanks to movie magic, including Oscar Isaac and Idris Elba
You'd be forgiven for not realizing that the villain in "X-Men: Apocalypse" is played by none other than Oscar Isaac, given all the blue makeup that is caked on his face. But he's not the first, nor will he be the last, star to be completely transformed on the big screen, which traditionally came via makeup but is increasingly created by state-of-the-art performance-capture technology.