Warcraft is an adaptation of an online role-playing video game series, which I have only heard of and have no desire to play. Warcraft feels like an initial installment in an ongoing almost Biblical style epic that is firmly ensconced in the action fantasy genre. Warcraft is about an invasion of orcs from another world into a world populated by human beings, but the movie’s sympathies are not so diametrically opposed. Warcraft depicts both sides fully as being corrupted from within if the orcs and humans do not find a way to stop the destruction to their way of life.
I did not even know that Warcraft existed as a movie until Rod and Karen discussed it on their podcast, The Black Guy Who Tips. Rod mentioned that Ruth Negga from Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and other black actresses were in Warcraft so I immediately added it to my queue. I have never seen Negga give a bad performance, and she is a truly unique and transcendent actor. It was probably good that I did not know that the other black actress is Paula Patton, who is very beautiful, but no thespian. Side note: Negga is not the only member of the Marvel universe cast of actors in Warcraft.
I am mad that I did not see Warcraft in the theaters. I would have happily paid if I had known two more things about Warcraft. First, Duncan Jones directed Warcraft. I love Jones’ two previous movies: Moon and Source Code. Side note: when I saw those movies, I did not know he is David Bowie’s son. I genuinely love Jones independently from my love for his father. He always roots the sci-fi genres with a sense of majestic emotion and humanity. Second, Warcraft stars Vikings’ Travis Fimmel, whom I believe to be one of the more interesting representations of a gentle, graceful and quirky masculinity on the big or small screen.
Reviewers complain when movies that adapt video games are too empty and action-filled, but they complain that Warcraft is too laden with mythology. Make up your damn minds! Other than Lord of the Rings or a Guillermo del Toro movie, the fantasy genre leaves me cold, and I have zero interest in role playing games, but I loved that Warcraft made me feel like I had ventured into the middle of a story that had a history long before I arrived and that would continue long after the film ended. I particularly appreciated the Moses reference.
The orcs of Warcraft were not one-dimensional characters created to be the bad guys, but a people with history, values and a proud tradition just as valuable and intricate as the world of human beings. They have families and friends whom they love. They were the warning of what could happen to the realm of human beings if they did not discover the root of corruption and dig it out. I found the orcs more interesting than the human beings because they were the underdogs and had basically lost the civil war that was corrupting their way of life. Now more than ever, we need more cautionary tales about what happens when evil hijacks and redefines what we value and strive to become, especially when that evil openly disregards any challenge to its authority in the face of righteous indignation. Movies like Warcraft help us to imagine what it looks like when our leadership goes awry either through willful, conscious corruption and destruction or unconscious creeping turpitude and how to confront it even at the risk of extinction because the eventual outcome is certain oblivion.
Paula Patton did her best work to date. I think that she worked harder because she had so much that she had to act through. Her character is a bit tropey, the tragic mulatto torn between two worlds and not belonging to either, but it worked, especially since the final scene suggests an added layer of tragedy and acceptance than holds a lot of promise for tension in any future sequels.
Warcraft was a bit predictable on the human side.
S
P
O
I
L
E
R
S
Because of my Christian fundamentalist upbringing, it is easier for me to be suspicious of any character that wields magic, especially if the character looks like Jesus and wears red in one scene and blue in another. I was disappointed that Warcraft does not elaborate more on the Guardian’s love lost story. There is also an awesome cameo by a renown American actress whom I suppose got promoted and is taking the honorable Judi Dench’s place (think of her appearance in the second Riddick franchise). I was really excited to see Callum Keith Rennie in another movie so soon after seeing him in Into the Forest, but I need someone to give him more work because I just don’t see him enough.
Even though the fantasy genre instinctually repulses me, I enjoyed the rich, textured world depicted in Warcraft and am eager for a sequel.