Given that director Duncan Jones has helmed two cerebral, small-bore science fiction films (Moon, Source Code), it’s a bit jarring to see his name on a CGI-stuffed adaptation of the Warcraft fantasy strategy video game series (and, by extension, its popular online role-playing iteration, World of Warcraft). Jones’ film concerns a horde of orc tribes, tenuously united by the warlock Gul’dan (Daniel Wu). Faced with a dying home world, the orcs send a sortie of warriors through a dimensional portal to the human world of Azeroth, where they labor to build a permanent gateway. These events are mainly seen through the eyes of Durotan (Toby Kebbel), an orc chieftain who has doubts about the green-hued Fel magic that the other clans have accepted so eagerly from Gul’dan. Things naturally come to a blood-spattered head when the humans—spearheaded by knight Aduin (Travis Fimmel), outcast mage Khadgar (Ben Schnetzer), and ageless sorcerous “Guardian” Medivh (Ben Foster)—take issue with the sacking of their kingdoms.
Much of Warcraft will doubtlessly be bewildering to non-gamers, as the film breezes over the source series’ staggeringly massive mythology. Not that the addition of additional fantasy gobbledygook would much improve the story, which is trite adventure boilerplate in most respects. The dialog is characteristically silly, and the bestial orcs are improbably more compelling than their human corollaries by a hefty margin. The non-mo-capped performances are mostly awkward, with Paula Patton’s unexpectedly soulful turn as half-breed slave Garona being the exception. Respectably executed epic action aside, there’s not much to recommend about Warcraft, although there is some narrow pleasure in seeing high fantasy executed with such opulence on the big screen. The series’ famously gaudy, slightly cartoonish design is faithfully recreated, and it makes The Lord of the Rings look like a staid Civil War drama in comparison.
Warcraft opens Friday, June 10 in wide release.
