Bullet Points: Warcraft

I’ve never been much of a gamer. Not since the SEGA Genesis days have I really sat down and played a game for hours and hours without stopping. Yeah, I’ll put on MLB The Show or one of the games from the Total War series from time to time but I’ve never been the type of person to get pulled into the world of online gaming the way that people did for World of Warcraft. It’s strange because I grew up playing Warhammer and the like, and still love to collect and paint in that world, but I know that if I ever started playing WoW then I would sit in front of a computer screen and wouldn’t move until I had drank 29 beers. It’s just much easier, and better for my body to watch the movie instead.

Synopsis: As an Orc horde invades the planet Azeroth using a magic portal, a few human heroes and dissenting Orcs must attempt to stop the true evil behind this war.

• Tolkien 4-Life: It’s still amazing to me that so many people have continued to make money off of what is essentially the same characters that Tolkien wrote about all the years ago. I’m not complaining. I love the idea of orcs, goblins, elves, and dwarves fighting it out with massive axes and epic-as-hell battles but even though Tolkien didn’t come up with these species, his family should probably be getting some royalties from these guys.
• The Invasion: The movie doesn’t waste any time showing us the invasion of the Orcs into the lands of the Azeroth. I didn’t know anything about these places or people and it felt like this film was more for those that have played the game and not those like me. I didn’t really have any frame of reference when it came to some to the areas they visited or how or why some of the people were important. They introduced the human King and I couldn’t even tell you what his name was. He was probably the third most important human character in the entire movie and was utterly forgettable.

• Sexy Orcs: I don’t know if they have half human/Orcs running around the game with their jugs hanging out but I can imagine that if that is the case then there are probably a bunch of nerds rubbing it out to some of those green skins. Paula Patton plays the half-breed Garona. She’s kicked to the curb by the Orcs and ends up causing the human Anduin Lothar to come up with new ways to hide his erection while wearing plate armor. It’s no easy task folks. It doesn’t take much for Garona to just start killing Orcs, though, and that was the one thing that made me really hate her character. We’re told her sad story, because every single character has to have one, but by the end of the movie she’s right back to where she started in terms of allegiance. Very odd.
• I’m Sorry, Let’s Make Out: Ole dude loses his kid and then almost immediately starts making out with the chick. That must be an all-time record.

• CGI Battlefield: The film is based on a video game so don’t be surprised when the movie feels like a video game. The characters aren’t fleshed out well. The cities and sites that they visit have no meaning to any non-gamers but the battles do look very cool. The Orcs carry a bunch of different weapons and killing devices, which is cool. It’s in stark contrast to the very limited weapons that we see from the human army as they essentially get their asses handed to them by the marauding Orcs.
• Show and Tell: The film gives a small glimpse into the world but doesn’t do much more than that. I saw some elves and some dwarves chilling out but not a single one of them joined the war against the invading force of Orcs who were planning on taking over the whole realm. It seems like they should have at least sent a few dudes to help out. It’s not nothing when a massive army invades and starts killing tons of people. My biggest problem with this film is that it feels so much like the first movie in a series that it hurts the shit out of it. Most of the characters struggle to make an impact in the short amount of time they’re given and many of them are even killed off by the end of the film. It’s all very odd.

Forget about the invasion for a minute and read these bonus Bullet Points:

• Lothar finally avenges the death of his son that no one cared about against the Orc that I didn’t even remember. The scene was a massive swing and a miss for me.
• I get that there is magic and all that in this world but it looks weird on screen. I can’t think of any movie that does magic well so I didn’t really expect much.
• Hack director Uwe Boll tried to get the rights to this movie but Blizzard basically laughed at him. Thank God. That guy is a real piece of shit at filmmaking.
• Director Duncan Jones has now made three feature films. Warcraft was his prize after making Moon and Source Code.
• This movie had a really anti-climactic ending…just like this review.