Duncan Jones directs Toby Kebbell, Travis Fimmel and Ben Foster in this Orcs versus Human epic… but with orcs versus orcs and human versus human subplots… plus some occasional dwarves. 

Who remembers Willow? Hands up. It wasn’t great was it? Keep your hands up. Not perfect. But fuck me, it was fun. There were jokes, stunts, fantasy elements you marvelled at when they fleetingly appeared in betwixt the swordplay and hobbit banter. Big budget fantasy films should stop trying to be Lord of the Rings and start trying to be more like Willow. Why? Because Lord of the Rings was based on a literary classic, beloved by many and crafted over decades by a genius (Tolkein or Jackson, take your pick)… while Willow was scribbled on the back of a fag packet by people who wanted to make a Star Wars with a lot less time consuming miniature work and more Val Kilmer. You try to match a classic when your source material is a derivative video game and you are going to come off looking like a bit of a divvy, whereas if you tried to match Warwick and the gang… You’ve got my drift already? Okey dokey, you can put your hands down now. Lesson hopefully learnt. Warcraft isn’t enjoyable. It confuses crowded narratives with scope, clangy and slashy movement with action. Only one midway battle at a failed negotiation in a chasm engages, everything else is just a well-costumed rumble featuring humans whose names you haven’t learnt. A bit of star power was really necessary here, not just for box office, nor even to piss away into the charisma vacuum, but to just have some recognisable facial landmarks in the proceedings. A Sam Rockwell here or a Jake Gyllenhaal there (the usually exciting director Jones has these phone numbers) would fill in for the lack of backstory and wisps of invested personality. A good likeable star does a lot of heavy lifting when you don’t have time to give your avatars any human dimensions. The sky is blank, bereft of much needed twinkle, and proceedings only become marginally more involving in the Orc camp. They at least have doubts, believable relationships and clear motivations. Warcraft would have been a better first chapter if the filmmakers just focussed on the realistically achieved Orcs’ politics, dilemmas and struggles. Introduce the humans in a sequel where they’d have a bit more room to breathe and come to life. Or better yet watch Willow, and not bother with this borer at all.

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