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Rating: 1 out of 5
World of Warcraft is a MASSIVE game. Introduced to the world in 2004 by Blizzard Entertainment, World of Warcraft takes place in the world of Azeroth. People can make almost any avatar they want and go on adventures or fight other people. I have never played the game, but it does look awesome as people get to explore an open world and do everything they can, from exploring lands, fighting monsters, and completing quests. My goal would be to become the strongest player ever in the game and level up my character to godlike abilities.
Before I start this review on the film, South Park had a hilarious and AWESOME episode and parody on Warcraft. The episode was called “Make Love, Not Warcraft and is the eighth episode of season ten. The episode is FANTASTIC where Cartman, Kyle, Stan, and Kenny play the game only for a high-level player goes around killing other players for fun. The crew decided to have no life and train every day to defeat the player. The episode is one of the best South Park episodes ever made.
The BEST and GREATEST World of Warcraft video has to be the one, the only, the man, the myth, the legend………LEEROY JENKINS!!! Created by Ben Schulz for World of Warcraft, the video is hilarious as Schulz was absent or not paying attention to his group’s plan. We have some major NERD talk going on with a success rate of somewhere around 32.33333, which is obviously repeating. Then the GREATEST thing happened, and Leeroy yells his name and messes up everything, but hey, at least he has chicken.
This brings me to 2016, when the world was graced with a live-action Warcraft film called Warcraft. It was directed by Duncan Jones, who co-wrote with Charles Leavitt, and starred the likes of Travis Fimmel, Paula Patton, Ben Foster, Dominic Cooper, Toby Kebbell, Ben Schnetzer, Robert Kazinsky, and Daniel Wu. Let’s say that the hype was high for this film. Computer nerds from around the world would descend upon their movie theaters. Some were dressed in cosplay and ready to cheer for their beloved classes. The only thing was that this movie sucked major ass. A film where humans try to stop an invading force of orcs and their sorcerer leader.
In World of Warcraft, the film begins in Draenor, the home world of the Orcs. Life was good until a mysterious force known as Fel magic. Gul’Dan (Wu), a powerful and corrupt orc warlock, uses his green, evil powers to unite the orc clans and form the Horde. Wanting to find a better place, he creates a portal to the beautiful world of Azeroth. The portal is not your typical portal. To operate it, the orcs drain the life force of their prisoners to sustain the portal. Once it is up and running, Gul’Duran and his elite crew capture prisoners in Azeroth to keep the portal up and running. While they want to have a better life, others in the orc clans have doubts, such as Durotan (Kebbell), the leader of the Frostwolf Clan, his pregnant boo thang Draka (Galvin), and his friend Orgrim Doomhammer (Kazinsky).
As the shit hits the fan with the Orcs attacking settlements throughout Azeroth, Anduin Lothar (Fimmel), the big dawg military commander of the human forces in the Stormwind Kingdom, starts investigating. He discovers a mage named Khadgar (Schnetzer), who states that he has felt the Fel magic and needs to figure out what is going on. Khadgar rolls up to King Llane Wrynn (Cooper) to consult Mediyh (Foster). After some talking, Llane decides to send Anduin, Khadgar, Medivh, and a group of soldiers to scout and figure out where the hell the orcs came from. They are suddenly attacked, but with the help of Garona (Patton), are shown the location of the portal. Shit gets even more real when Khadgar learns that the gate was opened with the help of someone in Azeroth. Dun dun dunnnnnnnn. King Llane must put his trust in unlikely allies to stop the orcs and the spread of Fel magic while also figuring out who the traitor is against Azeroth.
Let’s start off with the positives of this film, which are the visual effects. The visual effects hold this film up because if it weren’t for the visual effects, this film would really suck more than it did. Seeing the orcs, wizards, and locations was fun to look at. You could tell the movie took some time, really making sure the World of Warcraft was almost decent or spotless. Seeing the magic and people being drained of their life force was a highlight. Once again, the visual effects were the highlight.
Now for the shitty part of this film. The story was meh. You know what? I shouldn’t be surprised how this film turned out. Most video game movies don’t ever meet the mark. The reason is that the video game can be hours long, and studios are trying to cram everything into a 90-minute to two-hour film. It rarely works out too well. The concept of the Orcs invading a new land was fine, but that story is played out so many times that it is boring now. There is always some evil dude that has a hold over the group, only for the group to rise up and fight back. The question is, “What story could be written?” I would say that focusing on one primary character in the world would’ve been a better story rather than many characters.
I won’t obliterate the acting in this film. Rarely does someone from the video game film do straight-up outstanding. Paula Patton tried her best as the female orc. Others did a decent job, but I erased this film from my mind because it seemed like it was going down the drain quickly.
Warcraft is a video game film that should be picked. Honestly, the trailers for the games are way more entertaining than this film. Some of them have banger music playing along with it. If you are a fan of Warcraft, give this film a chance, but watch South Park or stick to the actual game.
BONUS CLIP!!!
BONUS CLIP!!!
