War Craft ..... this movie is one of those rare kind of movies that tries to do something different and yes I do respect it, even though it did not fully land well for me.
This story follows the first meeting between humans and orcs, and what makes this different from most fantasy movies is that it does not just pick one side and tell the story through them, The orc clan, led by Durotan, is fleeing a dying world through a magic portal, and they end up in Azeroth where the humans, led by Anduin Lothar and a young mage named Khadgar, have to figure out what to do about these new arrivals, Fight them, trust them, or try to understand them first.
What I appreciated the most was how much the movie made me care about Durotan, Usually in these kinds of stories, the invading side gets painted as pure villains, but here, Durotan is a father, a leader trying to protect his people and his unborn child, and honestly some of the most emotional moments in the entire movie belonged to him and his family, i did not expect to feel that much for a CGI orc, but then here we are.
The world building was also something I really liked, you can tell this movie was made by people who understood the game and wanted to honor it, the landscapes felt massive, the magic system had rules, and the politics on both sides, orc and human, felt layered instead of just being background noise for battle scenes.
Now here is where I know I have to be honest to you about this movie ,see here, because the pacing really struggled, there was a lot going on, there's were different factions, different motivations, orc politics, human politics, magic corruption storylines, and these made the movie sometimes felt like it was rushing to fit everything in together , instead of letting each scenes to breathe, Somehow I found myself a little lost trying to keep up with who wanted what and why along the way.
The human part of the story, seriously felt weaker to me compared to the orc storyline, but Lothar and Khadgar were fine, but I did not feel as emotionally invested in them as I did with Durotan's side, it almost felt like the movie knew what its strongest material was with the orcs and did not fully capitalize on that.
Visually though, I can't complain the CGI on the orcs held up really well, they felt like real characters with real weight and presence, not just special effects moving across the screen, the battle sequences were also genuinely exciting, big scale without feeling chaotic or hard to follow.
I think what stopped this movie from being great instead of just good was that it tried to set up so much for future movies that never got made, so certain storylines felt unfinished, like this was episode one of something bigger that got cut short, that somehow is disappointing because there was clearly so much potential here.
I would recommend Warcraft yeah... especially if you are a fan of the games or you enjoy fantasy movies that at least attempt something different with perspective, Is it perfect? No it's not, the pacing and uneven focus hold it back from being as good as it could have been.
But for what it is, an ambitious attempt at adapting a massive game world into a two hour movie, I still think it is worth watching, especially for Durotan's story alone.
Rating: 70/100