In the midst of this struggle is Garona ( Paula Patton), who’s half human, half orc. Basically, he’s called upon to transport himself and others from place to place by stringing together strands of glowing, blue light and chanting a few spells. And sure enough, Foster tries to bring glimmers of his trademark menace to the character, but it’s hard to act amid all the noise. He’s played by Ben Foster in a bit of casting alone that suggests perhaps he’s not to be trusted. The humans have a powerful wizard of their own: Medivh, or “ The Guardian,” as he’s known. The fact that Gul’dan has pulsating green eyes and likes to drain people of their life force to fuel his own magical abilities may have something to do with it. But while Lothar dutifully serves his king ( Dominic Cooper) and queen ( Ruth Negga), Durotan begins to question the motives of the clearly insane and power-hungry orc warlock Gul’dan ( Daniel Wu). Once they arrive, they attack the humans for control of the land: knights led by Durotan’s counterpart, the noble but personality-free Lothar ( Travis Fimmel, the Brooklyn pickle entrepreneur of Rebecca Miller’s “Maggie’s Plan”). There’s a lot of borrowing going on in “Warcraft.” On the other side is the more peaceful and pastoral Azeroth-although every sparkly, new fantasy realm we enter here calls to mind a place we’ve visited previously at some point in the “Lord of the Rings” saga. The film begins with orc warrior chief Durotan ( Toby Kebbell), his pregnant wife, Draka ( Anna Galvin), and their clan leaving their dying world by passing through a portal that looks like a wall of swirly, minty mouthwash. And yet, in between the self-serious, stilted conversations, we get snippets of quippy, anachronistic banter that are meant to provide humor but instead end up being jarring. But the mythology is much more dense than that the script from Jones and Charles Leavitt contains reams of expository dialogue, yet the story itself feels mind-bogglingly convoluted. Because yes, that’s what “Warcraft” is about: orcs and humans, and their noisy efforts to enter each other’s realms and destroy each other. But eventually you don’t know whether you’re looking at a good orc or a bad orc, and the CGI spectacle of it all renders everything with a glossy, detached sameness.įorgive me for wanting a little realism in my orcs. Hulking, tusked, muscular and festooned with fierce accoutrements, they’re like refugees from a GWAR concert. Similar to luggage at the airport, many orcs look alike. But “Warcraft” is difficult to follow from both a visual and a narrative perspective, with massive battle scenes between orcs and humans in which it’s difficult to tell who’s doing what to whom. In the midst of all that, it’s difficult to hear his voice-to see his attention to detail.Īn enormous budget and state-of-the-art technology have resulted in a movie that looks cheesy and cartoonish-a big-screen version of a video game world that more closely resembles the video game commercials you see on TV. This was clearly a formidable undertaking filled with sweeping imagery, motion-capture performances and tons of visual effects, all being projected in overwhelming IMAX 3-D. So it’s hard to figure out what happened with Jones and “Warcraft.” It’s as if the endeavor swallowed him whole. (Plus: If one Sam Rockwell is good, two Sam Rockwells are great.) Jones’ 2011 follow-up, the time-travel puzzle “ Source Code,” felt like a bit of a let-down by comparison but it was thrilling and challenging, and it showed his evolution as a filmmaker with a bigger cast and more expensive toys. His debut, “ Moon,” was my favorite movie of 2009 it was about mind-blowing, existential stuff but it had real verve, immediacy and heart. With just two features to his credit, Jones has shown a real knack for taking complex, sci-fi stories and telling them in clever, intimate ways. And it brings me no joy to report that to you because “Warcraft” comes from a filmmaker whose work I’ve been a big fan of: Duncan Jones.
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