Just got back from seeing the Warcraft movie.
I'm not really much of a WoW player, i'm not too aware of the universe and went with boyfriend to see it and he's a HUGE Warcraft geek and lover of the lore (I prefer Diablo 3 and Overwatch).
I was a bit hesitant to see it, most game to movie adaptations suuuuuuuuck, but here I was more than pleasantly surprised.
It was a really enjoyable movie, it was for me easily understandable and fine to follow, the CGI is absolutely amazing. It opens with a long shot of the face on Durotan, one of the main protagonists, and he's an Orc. And he LOOKS real, he looks very organic, he does not look like a CGI character. And that was also surprising, that you've got an Orc, typically a baddie race as having some good elements, but yeah he looked really real.
The story was simple but my boyfriend was making squee noises so I assume there's references that he was getting. He giggled when he saw these fish things, they were only there for a second and I assume they are from the game. The world of Azeroth itself looked and again, felt real. It was a living breathing world, not just a bad green and bluescreen (hello Star Wars Episode 1 - 3...)
The human actors were good, there was some rather good chemistry, and some rather funny moments that I did laugh at and yet the film is pretty violent if bloodless.
If there's one thing the CGI Orcs out acted the humans, and the humans were far from bad actors.
The music was also very good but it suffered from (in the cinema I was in at any rate) of being a bit too loud in places and it did drown out some of the speaking.
I liked the use of the magic in the film too, the magic was really dynamic and much more impactful than say LotR or even the Harry Potter series.
My main criticism is that it felt rushed, there's a lot to take in and perhaps it could have done with being 15 - 30 minutes longer, but it does not feel rushed in a bad way.
My boyfriend afterwards was gibbering about it and said that he liked the lore changes and that we both really enjoyed the movie. Most game to movie adaptations are well...crap, lets be honest, but I think that the Warcraft movie breaks this 'curse' and is a good solid movie that a pleb like me can watch and it also makes fans happy too.
I suggest giving this movie a try, its a genuinely good film :)
