Warcraft

So once again, I threw my preconceptions aside and almost completely volunteered to go to the cinema to see Warcraft. I had no idea what orcs were beforehand, and I found their teeth and general appearance quite laughable. Honestly, in the first few minutes, as fans of the game began to excitedly whisper their first impressions amongst each other, I mentally cursed myself for being there. But fine, it'll get better. I'll at least try getting into the normal people who act in it. Yeah, that Lothar guy's pretty cute. The queen's not completely off base, either. Aside from the teeth, Garona's actually pretty cool, too. Screw the teeth, she's great. And Durotan is the best orc in the world. Oh, my God, I like orcs! Is it over yet? Why?! It was just so much better than I expected, and I really want a second one. 4 stars. (03/07/2016)

A hodgepodge, which is not even bad enough to be ridiculously amusing in its unwanted stupidity (albeit flashy visuals or magic neon run style with bloody menacing glances, fingers ominously tapping and you can hear whispering something like "blablagrgrplopplopouch" are dangerously close to it) and at the same time it is not good enough to stand without any objections as a quality genre and not just as a video game B-rate movie pretending to be A-rate. Basically, when panoramas are being shown, the characters shut up and fight in a way that "someone randomly dies", it works well. In other words, yes, it works especially if it's essentially a variation on animations, as we know them directly from Blizzard. Despite how seriously it is taken, it also works in orc scenes, in which this is exactly what the movie Warcraft as a whole was supposed to be. But from the Alliance's point of view, everything is pure hell. In addition, in every second scene, it's more than obvious that the footage has been shortened a lot (some allegedly by up to forty minutes), but paradoxically it is not to the detriment. What is obvious is that the footage was shortened mainly due to removal of piffle. I mean what is like a torture when watching film adaptation of Warcraft. Even so, there is still more piffle than would be appropriate. Overall, it has vast potential, interesting story lines, decent battle scenes, sympathetic uncompromisingness of the main characters, but it also has C-rate dialogs, awkward actors (the real ones look like without life compared CGI orcs), appalling (however based on the original) stylization and gala show of the most original and ridiculous clichés from the department of "fantasy for losers". (18/06/2016)

Warcraft has high production value with a gorgeous fantasy world and great costumes, visually polished down to the last detail. I didn’t mind the absence of bigger stars, as I consider Ben Foster a great actor in his own right. My issues with the movie lie with my ignorance of the game, the rules of its world and types of spells, as well as with the dramaturgical simplicity of the story – I wasn’t too engaged by the racial conflict, had to divide my attention between too many characters and the deaths of some of them were given too little space with respect to their importance in the story. (27/06/2016)

I got what I expected. A slightly above average fantasy film that tries to be spectacular and succeeds quite well, but unfortunately falls flat on its face due to the sometimes downright repulsive stylization (I get it, it's very subjective), but mostly due to the unfortunate casting of a good half of the main characters and the attempt to fast forward and untell everything. Because of this, it doesn't make any sense at all at times, the relationships between the characters don't work the way they probably should, and trying to show as many monsters, places, cities, spells and things as possible ruins a potentially interesting story that ends up being much more banal than it could have been. Fans will probably be thrilled, but all I got was an ordinary if fairly epic fantasy movie that was alternately quite entertaining and downright grating at times. On the other hand, I accept that it's the first film and they managed to deal the cards in such a way that the sequel could be quite interesting and I'll happily go see it in a few years. I definitely don't need to see First Clash again though. (15/05/2017)

Duncan Jones tries to appeal to fans of all kinds of the source material, as well as those unaffected by Warcraft, but in my case, he only made it halfway, stumbling along the way. When unfamiliar characters appear a few minutes into the film, looking deadly serious and throwing around unfamiliar names, titles, or at least mysterious words like "Gul'dan," I didn't believe I could get into the story. Luckily, the whole mythology is not complicated, and everything starts to fit together, especially when combination with the adventure where something is always happening, and there is never a moment without one of the main characters fighting, enchanting, or at least flying around a battle or spell. The problem is that beyond the initial visual destruction or emotionally well-crafted soundtrack, there is nothing else. The battles, romances, pacts, and wars lack entertainment value, and the entire First Contact takes place without me starting to root for Lothar and his comrades. On the contrary, the only character who truly interested me and for whom I was rooting for dies in a shockingly routine manner. I wouldn't mind a sequel because with such breadth, there will always be something to develop, but here, there was a lack of soul that would have made this newly discovered universe feel close to me. 50% (15/08/2016)