It’s hard to walk into an established universe without any real understanding of it. For the non-gamers among us, it’s easy to give movies like ‘Warcraft’ a wide berth, assuming it’s the sort of film only the fandom will enjoy.
Fans of ‘Warcraft’ have been eagerly awaiting the movie, the first attempt to bring the incredibly popular game onto the big screen. There’s already a massive, ready-made market for the film. But can lovers of fantasy movies enjoy a story based on a video game?
The answer is a resounding yes. ‘Warcraft’ is very much an epic fantasy at heart, complete with sweeping vistas, fantastic creatures, invented languages and magic by the bucketful.
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Unlike the majority of fantasy epics, though, ‘Warcraft’ quite deliberately steps away from the ‘us vs them’ mentality where the humans are all heroes, and the orcs are always villains. Here, the orcs are incredibly rendered, but even more wonderfully brought to life by the actors and actresses involved. As the humans and orcs find themselves on similar quests for survival, viewers are given opportunity to see the dignity and nobility of creatures often used only as nightmare fuel or cannon fodder.
When the orc’s world begins to die, the clans have little choice but to fall in behind Gul’dan, a magic wielder intent on seeing all orcs come under his command. Wary and reluctant, Chieftan Durotan agrees, bringing his people through a portal into a new world ripe for conquest. But there’s no honour in the conquest, nor in the magic Gul’dan wields.
Durotan must make the hardest choice of his life: to convince his people to turn on their kind and join forces with the humans, or to abandon the honours and traditions that have guided his people throughout their history.
Visually, ‘Warcraft’ is stunning and the attention to detail will be a treat for those who’ve played the game. There are hat tips aplenty for those in the know, subtle enough for the most part that they don’t exclude newcomers to the franchise. All in all, the makers have done an inspired job.
There are niggling issues, of course, just as there are with all fledgling movie franchises. Most come down to the ambitiousness of the project. ‘Warcraft’ is rich in lore; a fully formed universe with a staggering amount of history and cultural identity to try and fit into a standard movie timeframe.
What has been included is barely a scratch on the surface, and not all the useful information made the cut. If you’re a fan of fantasy, though, you can quite easily fill in most of those gaps, and with signposts aplenty that more movies are planned, it’s likely that the answers are forthcoming.
For those who have played ‘Warcraft’, the movie is a fun romp through a landscape you’re intimately familiar with, and a chance to see beloved characters brought to life. But for those without prior knowledge of the ‘Warcraft’ universe, it’s an engaging, compelling movie with the promise of more to come.
★★★ 1/2
