Movie Thoughts: Warcraft (2016)

• Released: May 24th, 2016
  
• Directed by: Duncan Jones
  
• Running time: 2 h 3 min
• Rating 3.5/5

Synopsis

A fantastical world is plagued by war when a horde of orcs powered by dark magic try to take over. Human commander Lothar, orc chief Durotan, a young mage named Kadghar and and an orc hybrid called Garona try to find a way to make peace.

My Thoughts

Ah, video game adaptations. My favorite. Or not. Honestly I've watched so few that I really cannot tell. I know they have (or at least, used to have) a reputation for always sucking, but honestly I've had some good experiences with them, whether it be Arcane, Skylanders Academy, or this.

And yeah, despite not knowing jack shit about the World of Warcraft games, I genuinely enjoy this film. It's accessible enough to an audience who's not familiar with the games while also telling a pretty compelling story. Sure, the whole "epic fantasy magic war" isn't the most original concept out there, but they make it work.

I also quite enjoy the characters. Sure, they're not the most memorable bunch, but there's genuinely some effort here, when it would've been so easy to just not really try and make them boring one-note characters like I've seen in some fantasy movies. Lothar is a pretty standard heroic knight, but he's also not perfect and we do get to see him go through hell after losing his son in the war. Garona is interesting, not only because she's half-orc but also because her loyalty is constantly shifting. We as the audience definitely know that she's good inside, but there's still some questionable actions of hers that keep her more morally gray. Khadghar is probably my least favorite out of our leads, but he, too, leaves an impact and it's neat to see him and his magic powers grow.

My favorite aspect of the movie is definitely how it handled the orcs, though. In fantasy in general it's so easy to portray orcs (or really any race, usually the non-attractive looking ones) as one-note villains who are all evil with no nuance whatsoever. Heck, you all know how much I love Tolkien's Lord of the Rings and Peter Jackson's adaptations of them, but they're also very guilty of this trope.

Here, it's very much not the case. Sure, a lot of orcs do morally reprehensible things, but they're doing for a goal we can at least understand (wanting a new home after their old was destroyed). They're also being influenced and magically manipulated by Gul'dan, an incredibly powerful orc mage who has them in control due to them fearing him and him giving them a part of his power.

But it especially shows in Durothan and some of his tribe. From the start, he and those few are portrayed as sympathetic. They're not perfect, either, but they honestly just want to avoid all this bloodshed and live in peace, even going against Gul'dan's orders in order to try and achieve this. Heck, even Blackhand, who is definitely more on the villainous side of the spectrum, has some moral grayness to him because he does genuinely respect orc traditions and honor to an extent. So it was just really neat to see a more morally gray portrayal of the orcs here. Durothan especially is my favorite character from the film. Of course, they're technically speaking still the villainous faction, but still there's quite a bit of nuance to them.

I also thought that Medivh as a villain was a neat twist. There's already early on some hints, so his betrayal does not come completely out of left field, but it's also enough to keep the audience guessing what's really going on with him. So I thought he was a neat final villain for this film, while Gul'dan lives to tell the tale (for now) and would probably return as main villain had a sequel ever been made.

I think that it's unlikely we'll ever get one considering it's 2023 when I'm writing this and there's been (as far as I know) no confirmed recent news regarding a sequel, but still. I honestly wouldn't mind a sequel to the film in this case. I think there's been word of a reboot, but not a direct sequel. Oh well, I guess time will tell if we get another movie set in this universe and if so, whether it'll be a true sequel or more of a reboot.

Genuinely the only thing I really didn't like in this movie is this scene where they start pushing a romance between Garona and Lothar. I like these characters, but they just do not feel like they should be developing a romance at that point in the story. It just feels rushed and forced especially since they've known one another for only a really short time and under pretty strenuous circumstances. If they do want to push a Lothar-Garona romance I'd honestly be okay with that, but just put that in (potential) sequels and give it more time to develop because in this first movie it feels out of left field as hell. 

Overall I still consider this a good movie. Not perfect and it's not amazing or anything, but I genuinely had a good time re-watching it for this review and I think it's pretty damn solid. Whatever the sequel/reboot might bring if it does happen, let's just hope it's as good, or even better!