Did Warcraft beat the curse of the video game movie adaptation? Well, it’s tolerable. But just barely. Get back to the old drawing board, guys.
Video game film adaptations have a terrible reputation. Sometimes it’s because they’ve deviated too far from the source material like JCVD’s Street Fighter. Sometimes it’s because the vision of the filmmaker is just too ridiculous like Super Mario Bros. And sometimes it’s just because the movie is just a piece of crap like…well, pretty much all of them. Making one that’s even remotely watchable is an accomplishment by itself, let alone making one that anyone would qualify as good.
Where does Warcraft land on the scale of utterly unwatchable nonsense to tolerable? Surprisingly, it’s actually tolerable. But just barely.
Blizzard’s multi-million dollar multi-media franchise has been a money-making bonanza for years. For all of the games, books, comic books, and other adaptations, this 2016 release is the first live action film made in what will inevitably be a franchise.
It’s a very standard fantasy story. Humans teamed fighting orcs with dwarves, elves, and mages on the periphery. The orcs seek a new world to call home and are willing to use dark magic to get it. The humans fight with magic of their own. These are all set pieces we’ve seen before. Cough, cough…Lord of the Rings…cough. That doesn’t matter, though. Unlike other fantasy films, this one imbues the orcs with more nuance and motivation. Some question what they are doing and why. They are more than just mindless hordes bent on destruction; they are sentient beings trying to survive.
As an action fantasy film, Warcraft is quite enjoyable. There are decent characters and solid action scenes, even if a large percentage of those scenes are straight CGI. Frequently, you’re just watching an animated feature. But it’s not without its flaws and they can be big ones.
Mainly, it’s just too damn long and that’s because there’s just too damn much going in it. With a run time of just over two hours it drags as the end closes in. A lot happens in this movie, causing the plot to become diluted and unfocused. The story is constantly bouncing from moment to moment, character to character, and leads to a highly unsatisfying ending. Much like Batman v. Superman, this is not a movie with a complete story. It is setup for something bigger, the first act of a larger story. And because this movie is mostly table setting for future stories, there is little payoff to all the setups. That will hopefully come in subsequent movies but leaves the story in a largely open place at the end.
And the funny thing is they tell you as much in the opening.
While Warcraft isn’t a bad movie, overall it’s still pretty meh. Box office results in North America have been exceedingly disappointing when you consider the large production budget. It would have been a major loss for the studio behind the movie had it not been for the international numbers, particularly China.
Much has been written about the growing importance of the Chinese market to Hollywood. There are a growing number of movies that bomb in North America but do very well there, and Warcraft is a prime example of that. “Frequent” is a deceptive term as the Chinese government allows very few foreign films to screen and those that do must meet strict requirements. But meeting those requirements, which range from pandering to censorship, has become key. In the case of Warcraft, it had a budget of $160 million but to date has only brought in $38 million in North America. Internationally, and primarily in China, Warcraft has brought in $339 million. That effect can be found in a variety of box office results for big budget films that were North American bombs but huge successes in China and received sequels because of it.
There will be more films in the Warcraft franchise but don’t be surprised if they don’t end up in wide release in North America. This franchise might end up with its primary home being on Chinese theatre screens with a limited release in other parts of the world.
In the end, Warcraft is a decent fantasy action film that just needs more focus and a tighter run time. If they can accomplish that, the filmmakers behind it might end up scoring big box office numbers on both sides of the Pacific.