WARCRAFT: THE BEGINNING
Director : Duncan JonesCast : Travis Fimmel, Paula Patton, Ben Foster, Dominic Cooper, Toby Kebbell, Ben Schnetzer, Robert Kazinsky, Ruth Negga, Daniel Wu, Anna Galvin, Clancy Brown, Terry Notary
Genre : Adventure/Fantasy
Run Time : 2 hrs 3 mins
Opens : 9 June 2016
Rating : PG13 (Some Violence)
Blizzard’s fantasy franchise
comprising video games and novels finally makes its leap to the big screen. Sir
Anduin Lothar (Fimmel), the military commander of the Stormwind Kingdom in
Azeroth, faces an unprecedented threat: Gul’dan (Wu), a powerful orc warlock,
is leading the orc hordes from their dying homeworld of Draenor into Azeroth. Garona
(Patton), a half-orc, half-human woman enslaved by Gul’dan, must decide where
her loyalties lie. The noble orc chieftain Durotan (Kebbell), whose mate Draka
(Galvin) is pregnant with their first child, does not see the merit in
Gul’dan’s attack. At the behest of Stormwind’s King Llane Wrynn (Cooper),
Lothar must defend Azeroth from the invaders. Together with young mage Khadgar
(Schnetzer), Lothar seeks out the reclusive sorcerer Medivh (Foster), the
Guardian of Tirisfal. They must repel Gul’dan’s evil magic, known as the Fel, as
the seeds of an ages-long conflict are sown.
Director Duncan Jones, who co-wrote the screenplay with
Charles Leavitt, weathered an arduous production process and is himself an
ardent fan of the Warcraft franchise.
The disparity in the reaction the film has received from critics and fans
indicates that this does appeal to those already familiar with the source
material and who are excited to see the characters and locations come to life
in cinematic form, but that those coming in cold will likely be alienated. This
is very much a generic high fantasy tale, and there are so many characters
introduced from the get-go that it’s easy to get them mixed up. The
straight-face earnestness in the approach is a double-edged sword: on one hand,
the filmmakers demonstrate a belief in the world they are building, but on the
other, there’s an impenetrable rigidity to it all. Jones ploughs dutifully
through the plot, but audiences aren’t given a chance to acclimatise to the
world and the characters; the story itself is simple in nature but convoluted
in execution.
Visually, this is an achievement, if not as
earth-shattering as some might have hoped. The visual effects work, handled by
Industrial Light and Magic and other houses like Hybride and Rodeo FX, is
superb throughout. Visual effects supervisor Bill Westenhofer was an Oscar
winner for Life of Pi, and one can
tell that great care has been put into realising the digitally-created
characters and environments. The props were crafted by Weta Workshop, and
everything from the suits of armour to the swords to King Llane’s helmet abounds
with pleasing detail. It’s a shame then that while perfectly acceptable, none
of the designs really set Warcraft
apart from its high-fantasy ilk.
After boarding the project, Jones set about re-writing
the script so that it wasn’t built around the hoary trope of “all the humans
are good guys and all the monsters are bad guys”. Fimmel, best known as Ragnar
Lothbrok on the TV series Vikings, is
a serviceable heroic military commander. Lothar’s relationship with his son
Callan (Burkely Duffield) is a key component of the character’s arc, but
because it has to make room for everything else, that is severely
underdeveloped. Patton exudes confidence and retains a degree of elegance while
playing a feral half-breed; Garona ended up being the character this reviewer
gravitated to the most. Foster lacks the other-worldly mystique that Medivh
should have, while Schnetzer is a fine sidekick to Fimmel.
In addition to play the orc chieftain Grommash
Hellscream, Terry Notary was also the movement coach for the actors play the
orcs. Notary’s credits include Avatar
and Rise and Dawn of the Planet of the
Apes. The orcs are brutish by nature, and the gentleness with which Durotan
holds his new-born son does lend the character more shades beyond that of a
fierce warrior. Cooper looks the part of a dashing young king and Negga is
plenty regal as Llane’s Queen-consort Lady Taria. Gul’dan is as one-dimensional
as villains get: he’s little more than the snarling, hunchbacked wizard with an
unquenchable thirst for power. We would offer Wu some praise, but it is hard to
find him (or most of the other actors playing orcs, for that matter) in the
character, since his voice has been treated in post-production and there’s no
resemblance whatsoever. This reviewer feels Wu should be a much bigger star in
Hollywood, so it was a bit of a disappointment knowing he’s in this movie but
is hardly noticeable.
Warcraft is not
a total wash, but given the build-up and the massive following the franchise
has, it’s a shame that the film carries with it the vibe of going through the
motions. Jones is obviously passionate about the property and has filmmaking
talent to spare, but the cluttered narrative holds neophytes at bay. It’s hard
to shake the feeling that one has been dropped in the deep end of the Warcraft lore pool, when this is meant
to be an origin story that builds the world from the ground up. It’s more frustrating
than genuinely aggravating that Warcraft
stumbles so many times in its would-be epic journey.
Summary:
For long-time fans of the franchise, this might be a dream come true, but it
will be challenging for newbies to make head or tail of the overstuffed story,
or differentiate a number of the characters.
RATING: 3
out of 5 Stars
Jedd Jong
