#watched WARCRAFT: The Beginning
Without prior in-depth knowledge of the story nor property nor characters of the video game by Blizzard Entertainment, I pretty much enjoyed WARCRAFT the film, even if the notion was somewhat pedestrian and predictable, it was still a fun swords x fantasy warplay with orcs of honor, struggling with the humanity of survival, cheesy mages, and a all-too-obvious device for sequel(s) - this is after all "The Beginning" - which is all right by me!
I had no intentions of watching this film, actually, especially after reading non-too favorable reviews from some folks online decrying the lack of respect for the source material (amongst other gripes) and general confusion with multiple characters to absorb … be that as it may, I cwould not know otherwise, and it certainly worked for folks like me who have no prior connection to said source, and hey looks like the filmmakers have hit on a new horizon, versus critics and box office in the West.
Directed by Duncan Jones (son of David Bowie), I liked that the film starts in the middle of everything that has happened, and we go along to find out what will happen next, all the while being introduced to characters, without the need or lengthy expositions of their backstory … of course I am hoping their own stories will be told in time, in subsequent sequels, but frankly, I do not care about them enough to, well, care!
When a mass of characters are introduced, you'd clearly have picked out your favs and want to know more about them, while the rest? They become fodder for battles, and how they help the story progress ... So if the King bites the dust, then perhaps his story was not as important for the audience to care about, yeah?
Although, I could't help but snigger that the King and Queen were "Jesse" and "Tulip" from AMC's Preacher television series (actors "Dominic Cooper" and "Ruth Negga", respectively) - he simply had to die as he needed to go another set! LOL
And I couldn't place the actor who played "Lothar", until doing this review = "Ragnar Lothbrok" from VIKINGS, played by Australian actor Travis Fimmel! I loved the intensity in his eyes, but maybe his hair got my attention instead lol
And that reminded me of my only styling bugbear in this film = the mage-in-training (Ben Schnetzer as "Khadgar"), who looked like he woke up in 2016, put on some costumed tunic, and went straight to work on the set! Style him up a bit more, can? Pete's sake!
Even Paula Patton's "Garona" orc teeth weren't much of a problem to me, besides a slight distraction hahahaha
I might have read somewhere (hence no credit/link) of someone's disdain with the CGI used, especially with the animation of the Orcs, and I cannot agree or disagree, because I personally have a simple category for them: "Plausible-to-Excellent", and "Utter-Crap". The Orcs were well within the first option, IMHO. Anything further commentary, and I'd be an obvious nose-up-in-the-air-schmuck of an armchair warrior LOL
C'mon, we watch this for the ORCS, which just about lifts the film from every other swrod-fantasy-flick generic out there - Take THAT Ugly Orcs from LOTR! LOL
I'm just happy to see ORCS up kicking human butt! FOR THE HORDE!!! LOL
"Lord of the Rings"-level of animation it might not be (very close tho, to my untrained eye), but tis effective enough to entertain me … although the neon-greens and electric-blues seen when the Mages wage war were pretty kitschy-funny, but hey, this is a fantasy film bout warring giant orcs from a video game = what kind of "realism" are people expecting in the first place? HAHAHAHAHAHA
Worth a DVD rental, or a price of a cinema ticket, I reckon, if you are into these genre of entertainment. And while I do own the LOTR trilogy on DVD, I'd not need to own the DVD of this, because essentially all fantasy films are as similar to each other as "swords-n-sandals" movies, to me anyways … So I'm not necessary in the demographic the film is catered for :p
Although I cannot say if my choices might waiver when the subsequent sequels come out ... I didn't think of getting the LOTR movies until after Two Towers, actually :)
BUT if you are NOT a fan of this particular genre, then you'd not have missed anything exceptional that we've not necessarily seen before.
Cheers
Andy
WHAT-IS: "Warcraft (alternatively known as Warcraft: The Beginning) is a 2016 American fantasy film directed by Duncan Jones and written by Jones, Charles Leavitt and Chris Metzen. It is based on the Warcraft video game series and novels set in the world of Azeroth. The film portrays the initial encounters between the humans and the orcs and takes place in a variety of locations established in the video game series.(All stills via www.facebook.com/WarcraftMovie)
The film was first announced in 2006 as a project partnership between Legendary Pictures and the game's developer, Blizzard Entertainment." (Wiki)
www.warcraftmovie.com
