Warcraft (2016) - Duncan Jones

Duncan Jones' Warcraft is a film at war with itself, pun intended, being a fantasy adventure that is far too dark for young viewers, yet far too dumb for adult viewers, chugging along that painstakingly middling road which plagues most large blockbusters these days, as it attempts to appeal to everyone and in turn appeals to no one.  The story is centered around the peaceful realm of Azeroth, a civilization of humans, elves, and dwarves, that now stands on the brink of war due to the arrival of the a fearsome race of invaders: the Orcs.  Fleeing their dying home, the orcs are led by Gul'dan, a powerful orc warlock, who unites the orc clans and forms the Horde, creating a magical portal to transport the Horde to peaceful Azeroth.  Intent on only the survival of the orc species, Gul'dan leads a ruthless attack on the peaceful kingdom, intent on colonizing the world for his brethren.  As the war begins to rage, heroes from opposing sides emerge, recognizing that peace among species is the only way for mutual survival, a realization which leads the dissenting Orcs to challenge Gul'dan, the powerful warlock who has been corrupted by mysterious force known as fel magic.  Duncan Jones' Warcraft is a big dumb fantasy film and I was enjoying it for awhile, until unnecessary plot twists and convoluted storylines begun to grab a hold.  My 12 year old self would have had an Aneurysm at the sure scope of this film, and Duncan Jones deserves a lot of credit, early on, for creating this world of rich textures and variable settings, one that quite frankly left me compelled to keep watching.   Perhaps one of the biggest problems with Warcraft is the orc characters are way more compelling than their human counterparts, with nearly every character from the world of Azeroth being largely uninteresting and one-dimensional.  The film starts completely from the perspective of the Orcish horde, highlighting Durotan, the chieftan of the Frostwolf Clan, and his pregant mate Draka, two orcs simply want the best for their family.  Despite their doubts about Gul'dan, they join the horde, admitting that it may be the only way for them and their child to survive.  This story arch is by far the most compelling, yet Warcraft rapidly tries to shoehorn in far too many other narrative threads, creating an experience that is overstuffed.  The visuals of Warcraft can be stunning at times, but the overly cartoonish action did begin to wear out its welcome hastily, looking more like a video game than live action, which left wishing I could plug in a controller and participate in the carnage.  The finale of Warcraft is really the final nail in the coffin though, an absolutely ridiculous ending that essentially resolves very little related to the psychotic Gul'dan.  Without going into details, lets just say the ending makes no sense and logically offers very little reprieve for peace in the grand scheme of things.  A large scale, CGI-fest, Warcraft is a fun, dumb fantasy adventure film early on, but unfortunately the film gets far too expansive when it comes to plot twists and narrative threads, becoming a convoluted mess at times, with a laughably bizarre ending.  

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