Warcraft
We watched “Warcraft” last night – the movie based on the massively multiplayer role playing game “World of Warcraft” (or more specificallythe never-ending line of Warcraft role playing games, for the anal fans that will correct me immediately. There are rumours of a World of Warcraft sequel in the works).
I remember when the movie came out at the cinema, and got roundly hammered by the critics – the majority of which seemed to join in, as critics often do, throwingas much excrement as possible at the movie. Here's the thing though – if you look at the ratings of the movie at the “Rotten Tomatoes” website, there's ahuge disparity between the journalists, and the public.
After watching the movie, I have to say I agree with the public. Sure, the movie isn't mind-blowing, but it's entertaining, interesting, and for somebody with at least a little knowledge of the game world it illustrates, it only begins to scratchthe surface of a very deep canon of lore.
I'm not going to describe the story, beyond noting that this is very obviously the start of a story that will be told over several movies (if funding ever becomes available, given it's lacklustre support at the box-office). It suffers from the same problems as “Dawn of Justice” – both introducing, and piecingtogether a vast number of back-stories, history, and characters in the space of a couple of hours. It's almost impossible.
I will admit to smiling broadly as thehuman characters swept into Stormwind aboard Griffons – tracking the World of Warcraft video game almost perfectly. The meeting between the King and a young mage in an Inn should also make players of the game smile – the Inn is aperfectrecreation of the one that all beginners playing human characters visit in the Elwynn Forest.
If you're looking for an entertaining, exciting, popcorn munching movie to fill a weekend evening, Warcraft is a pretty good choice.