Gaming & Culture —

The Warcraft movie is ill-conceived propaganda for the Alliance

Review: The characters are about as complex as the ones in the original games.

I'm not too proud to confess that I love watching vaguely humanoid creatures smash each other with hammers and broadswords. I mean, that's what's best in life. So here's some good news about Warcraft, the new movie based on the PC games: it delivers quite a bit of orc-on-orc action, particularly in the giant hammer department. The gryphons are good, too. But in spite of the action, you're left wanting more. That's because this movie lacks compelling characters whose adventures we actually care about.

The plot of Warcraft is needlessly complicated, though it all boils down to orcs fighting humans. Orc warlock leader Gul'dan has brought the Horde together to flee Draenor, the orc homeworld, because he's trashed the environment with evil fel magic. The Horde is preparing to head through a giant portal to the human world of Azeroth and take over. Meanwhile, the humans have never seen orcs before and are not crazy about orc colonial tactics, which involve the aforementioned hammers, as well as general burning and killing. All the battle scenes are genuinely fun, and it's entertaining as hell to watch the humans figuring out how to exploit orc weaknesses in one-on-one combat.

Too many cooks

Instead of telling a relatively straightforward story of the clash between two worlds pitted against each other by dark magic, Warcraft zooms from land to land, character to character, delivering a stew of a tale that suffers from way too many ingredients. There's the drama of Anduin, a great warrior whose son has finally reached soldiering age and who struggles to overcome the fear that his son will die just like his wife did. There's Garona, the half-orc slave girl, torn between the world of the noble Horde and the vaguely democratic Alliance. Then there's Khadgar, a young sorcerer questioning his powers, whose mentor Medivh is sworn to protect Azeroth but is stricken by a mysterious ailment. And NO I'M NOT EVEN DONE, because then there's Durotan, a good orc leader who questions Gul'dan's fel-infused power-mongering. And there are also Orgrim and Draka, who secretly support Durotan's rebellion against Gul'dan.

Suffice it to say that any two of these characters could have formed a rich tapestry for a movie plot arc. Garona's position between two worlds would have been a great focal point, as would Khadgar's coming-of-age as a mage. Or we could have delved into Durotan's struggle against Gul'dan, which was genuinely interesting; or Anduin's complicated relationship with his son. The fact is, even the most action-packed fantasy needs a compelling central character, whether it's a campy Conan or an emo Frodo. Warcraft's lack of attention to good characterization is particularly surprising from writer/director Duncan Jones, famous for his intense character study Moon, about one man dealing with lonely weirdness on a lunar mining station.

Khadgar is a young mage learning to channel his power. This is totally what it looks like when I do magic. No, I can't show you because of my, um, mage code. But trust me, my whole face is glowing with blue glyphs right now.

WTB gold

Another major issue with Warcraft was perfectly articulated by a fan who attended the same advance screening I did: "That was propaganda for the Alliance!" he complained jokingly as we left the theater. He may have been kidding around, but this fan had a point. The Horde is woefully undeveloped, with only Durotan standing out as a character whose motivations are more complicated than "I like to punch things." It's telling that the main point-of-view orc character is Garona, whose mixed heritage somehow left her looking like a hot human woman with slightly greenish skin and dainty mini-tusks. She also speaks the human tongue perfectly, and she's happy to abandon her orc ways as soon as the human queen gives her a fluffy blanket to sleep on. The allure of Warcraft the game for many fans is the fact that Horde and Alliance are equally matched, each offering their own strengths and weaknesses. Ultimately, this movie needed to convince us that the Horde was just as awesome as the Alliance. But it was obviously biased toward the Alliance and gave over most of its screen time to Alliance characters and concerns.

Noticeably absent from Warcraft was a major element of the gameplay: economics. Sure, it's possible to play Warcraft and just pay attention to the characters, but mining and cutting down trees are huge obsessions for many players. Campaigns cost money, and the games allowed people to explore many ways to raise funds and develop elaborate defenses. This became even more extreme in World of Warcraft, where the game economy actually became part of many real-world economies, with people trading WoW gold for goods and services outside the game (including actual gold farming). This may reflect my own biases, but I thought it was odd that we didn't get a single scene—or even a joke—about people mining for gold.

Despite all its problems, Warcraft is a sturdy B-movie. The action is great, and the magic looks suitably badass. It reminded me a lot of the Dungeons & Dragons movie, which also had amazing monster action but flat characters. Unlike Dungeons & Dragons, however, Warcraft is already an international hit. It's been out for two weeks in many Asian countries, a week in the UK, and is a box office smash in China. So whatever you think about this movie, you're pretty much guaranteed a sequel.

Listing image by Warcraft

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Channel Ars Technica