Warcraft Movie Review – Is it worth seeing?

Warcraft is the movie that many fans of the popular Blizzard franchise have been waiting for since it was first announced in 2006. Having gone through multiple adjustments since then, here we are 10 years later and we are finally getting a Warcraft movie. Was it worth the wait?

Let’s start off by going over the story. The Orcs have all but destroyed their home world and an Orc shaman by the name of Gul’Dan has found a way to go to another world that isn’t in Ruins. Gul’Dan then calls Orcs from all tribes to join him in taking over this new world. Using the lives of captured inhabitants of the Orc world Gul’Dan is able to open the portal, but the sacrifice is only able to last long enough to bring the toughest warriors from Orc tribes through the portal. Their plan is to take take over this new world using their most powerful to capture new sacrifices. The to use these sacrifices to open the gate again and allow the rest of the Orcs to enter this new world.

Once in this new world the Orcs start attacking villages and towns of the Humans of Azeroth taking them prisoner. From here on out it’s a battle of the Orcs trying to get sacrifices and the Humans trying to stop them. Herein lies one of the problems, the plot feels very generic. For a world filled with magic, warriors, shamans, and creatures of every shape and size the movie does not take advantage of this. Throughout the movie there are really only two races, the Humans and the Orcs. And even then the battles are just physical brawls with swords, hammers, and brute force. The strategy of the battles feel missing in most of the fight scenes. With that said though the fight scenes do look beautiful. The fights feel real and you can feel the damage that the Humans and Orcs are causing to eachother, but they still feel like something is missing.

We do get some different designs for the Orcs, but all the humans minus some shown very briefly look the same except for facial hair. They really don’t have too much character to them. Every time the Orcs showed up I could instantly tell who was who and I was able to follow along with them. They actually had conflict, personality, and reason for their actions. The humans just had the sole purpose of being the foil to the Orcs. Only two human characters really get any development with Sir Anduin who is a knight in the Alliance and Khadgar who is a mage that wants to help stop the Orc invasion. None of the other human characters really have any personality or lack the development for their actions. The only other humans to really do anything during the film of any significance are the King who doesn’t do much until the film is nearly over, and then the guardian whose instead of getting any development in his character only shows up to perform feats of magic that can only be described as “it was needed for the plot” and feels forced.

In the entire two hour long movie the only races we see besides the Orc and the Humans are the Dwarves (three times for less than 1 minute each time), Blood Elves (I only recall them speaking 1 line in the whole movie), and then Dranei (at the very beginning of the film and nowhere else). Then in terms of creatures we get to see the Wolf mount for the Orcs, a Griffin for the Human Alliance, and then a deer in the forest. I do not recall seeing any other creatures in the movie at all. There is a lot of wasted potential in this movie with the world that Warcraft has which makes the movie feel lacking.

With that said though, the visuals are amazing. The world feels real with the forests and castles that are explored. One scene in the movie when a character rides a griffin into Stormwind and lands in the flight path castle, it brought back that nostalgic feeling this movie should have made me feel during the full 2 hours. I would have loved to see more exploration in areas like IronForge which only appears in the movie briefly or the introduction of other cities. I think it would have felt more like a Warcraft movie if we got to see some more races and their respective territories. It could have really opened new possibilities to show the Orcs teaming up with Trolls or the Undead in order to carry out their plot, or the other races in the alliance actually joining the battle with the Humans.

Final Thoughts
Well simply put, it doesn’t feel like a movie 10 years in the making, but it was by no means bad. The visuals are stunning and really take you into the world, but sadly that world feels very small in this movie. With the movie only taking advantage of the Humans and Orcs and with a very simplified plot the movie feels like it should have more to it. Hopefully with the attention the movie is getting in China and with a hopeful success in the US market this movie will be able to garner a sequel which could see these problems fixed. I would have liked to see more of an Alliance vs Horde scenario instead of a Humans vs Orcs. The visuals and locations they do have in the movie are beautiful and stick close to the source material. Seeing Stormwind from the sky view looks exactly as I remember from the game. For anyone who has played World of Warcraft this movie will be for you.