Warcraft: The Beginning

For F*** Magazine

WARCRAFT: THE BEGINNING

Director : Duncan Jones
Cast : 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 

2 Guns

For F*** Magazine

2 GUNS

Director: Baltasar Kormákur
Cast: Denzel Washington, Mark Wahlberg, Paula Patton, Bill Paxton, James Marsden, Fred Ward, Edward James Olmos
Genre: Action
Run Time: 109 mins

Everybody loves a buddy cop movie. We get a kick out of seeing two different people flung into a sticky situation, typically involving blazing firearms, working out their differences to arrive at an uneasy partnership. Sometimes they’re serious, like with Training Day or Se7en. Oftentimes they’re more lighthearted, like with the Bad Boys, Rush Hour and Men in Black films. The late film critic Roger Ebert dubbed this type of film “wunza movies”, a play on the phrase “one’s a…” that might be present in the trailer voiceover. 2 Guns is the latest entry in this subgenre, based on a graphic novel by Steven Grant.

One’s an undercover DEA agent (Denzel Washington’s Bobby) and one’s an undercover Naval Intelligence Officer (Mark Wahlberg’s Stig). Both are posing as criminals, dealing with infamous drug lord Papi Greco (Olmos). The catch is neither is initially aware that the other is actually also one of the good guys. As is often the case in films of this variety, Bobby and Stig find themselves in way over their respective heads, with no choice but to trust each other as they get embroiled in an increasingly messy web of triple-crosses and dirty deals. Their foes and allies, including Bobby’s DEA colleague and sometime-lover Deb (Patton), Stig’s commanding Officer Quince (Marsden) and the sinister, shady operative Earl (Paxton) all have their part to play in what initially seems like a straightforward drug money heist but ends up as a whole lot more.



The first reaction one might have upon hearing the summary “a buddy cop movie starring Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg” is “wow, that sounds like it’ll work”. The pairing of its leads is indeed the best thing 2 Guns has going for it. Washington has plenty of experience playing a cop/agent and is still a sexy stone-cold fox at 58. Mark Wahlberg, whose last brush with the buddy cop subgenre was taking the mickey out of it in the raucous The Other Guys, is pretty funny here too. It seems his true calling is comedy rather than action; he’s probably happy to get the best of both worlds with this film.

Unfortunately, there isn’t a whole lot to recommend past the Double W double act. 2 Guns feels a lot like something Shane Black might have written and possibly directed, except that it might have been lighter on its feet had that been the case. The film suffers from noticeable pacing issues, never quite getting into a proper rhythm and feeling longer than its 109 minutes. The plot does get pretty hard to follow, which isn’t something you want in your fun, late-summer action flick. 2 Guns reunites Wahlberg with his Contraband director Baltasar Kormákur, the resulting film somewhat reminiscent of The Losers, which was set in similarly dusty locales.



Bobby and Stig go up against three main antagonists: James Marsden’s Commander Quince, Bill Paxton’s Earl and Edward James Olmos’ Papi Greco. All three clearly enjoy chewing their share of the scenery and it is fun to see the clean-cut Marsden play against type as someone who clearly isn’t the “nice guy” he’s often cast as. Of the three, Paxton manages to be the most genuinely menacing as the government-linked agent with a southern drawl and a penchant for dealing out torture. Edward James Olmos’ Papi Greco is pretty much the stereotypical Mexican drug lord – oh, he uses a jumpy, angry bull as an interrogation implement. That’s pretty mean. Paula Patton is decent as the requisite girl and provider of eye candy, though we certainly would’ve preferred seeing her in the thick of the action in a role more like the one she played in Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol.

It seems the film would have benefitted from more of a focus. The crisscrossing plot threads don’t make the film complex, they make it unnecessarily confusing. This isn’t an action flick with an explosion going off every other minute, but the central set piece involving Bobby and Stig charging into the Corpus Christi Naval Air Station is executed pretty well, as is the finale set on a cattle ranch, which makes use of an ill-fated helicopter. Studios have generally shied away from the R-rated actioners that were all the rage in the 80s and 90s in favour of teen-friendly stuff, and in the end 2 Guns is as adequate a source as any if you need that fix.

SUMMARY: It’s not paced very well and suffers from a case of “plot pretzel”, but 2 Guns scores a casting coup in teaming up Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg.

RATING: 3 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong