WARCRAFT: Opportune cash-grab at the Game of Thrones zeitgeist

Every brand name must have a commoditised value to Hollywood these days, right? Why else did they release a film based on a mobile phone game? Why remake Mary Poppins? Why bother rebooting the Power Rangers when it screams of Dragonball: Evolution Part 2 (although I’m strangely rooting for that one)? The reason for Warcraft’s existence surely lies in the licencing department of Legendary Pictures: “We’ve got this property, $160 million to spare, and people kind of like that Game of Thrones show… Sure, let’s do it!”

Helpfully subtitled ‘The Beginning’ in the UK as a forewarning, Warcraft tells the story of the Horde Clan – made homeless by their demonic overlord, Nazmaldun – who look to conquer and resettle in the human-inhabited Aerostar. Among the magic books and forests and Stargates in the kingdom of Eyeoftyr are our four protagonists – the clan leader rebelling against Nazmaldun; an orc/token female warrior seeking peace between the humans and Hordes; a Finn-type exile harnessing the powers of Allegro; and a bearded James-McAvoy-Wasn’t-Available Knight of the Square Table.

I’ve made up half of those pronouns, by the way. Like any post-Tolkien fantasy epic, the pronouns are labels doled out to give the illusion of coherence. And like most post-Tolkien fantasies, Warcraft is a slog; a sandbox rendered complicated yet mundane by sticking too closely to the tropes of the sword and sorcery genre.

‘Video game cutscene’ may be a critique as half-arsed as Warcraft, but the film neither has the daring of being fully animated (see Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within), nor the interest in experimenting with the source material like in admirable failures as Super Mario Bros andStreet Fighter. Especially since the level of acting has the same cotton-mouthed execution of a cutscene, Warcraft’s hapless mixing of CGI and in the flesh B-list actors reminded me somewhat of Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Except …Roger Rabbit embraced its loud, proud, cartoonish nature.

Warcraft tries so hard to be reserved, to colour stringently inside the lines so not to scare too many away from the inevitable sequel, it forgets to have fun. The whole endeavour plays out like a cash transaction: here’s your ticket, here are your action set pieces, here’s your limp attempt at a backstory (the only sequence that comes near to ‘heartfelt’ gets immediately dismissed by fake-James-McAvoy: “well, okay then”), here’s a sorta-cliffhanger. Thank you, see you again in two years.

Why Duncan Jones chose this project isn’t a mystery if you consider a modern director’s career trajectory. Directors used to hack their way through other people’s visions until some producer entrusted them enough in a more distinctive, but still financially beneficial, project. Now they slum it through the “inexpensive movies with very personal stories” so they can attach themselves to hulking corporations that close at 38.01 on the New York Stock Exchange. Jones began by directing engaging Twilight Zone tributes – space isolation drama Moon; the illogical but thrilling Source Code – but the lack of personal touch here, except for maybe a fanboyish affinity towards the design of the creatures and landscapes, suggests he’s spent the last several years on this film as a mere hired gun. Give the $160 million to the director of Lavalantula and it’d look the same.

Warcraft is 130 minutes of boredom from all those involved, interspersed with odd shifts in tone. I noticed near the end a sudden bromantic humour between fake-McAvoy and Finn (every joke dies on its arse). Were these reshoots, done for the dreaded committee-driven need to lighten up the mood? Or did they realise too late how, for the countless characters and world-building elements, sheer noisiness alone wasn’t big enough to fill the void between the film and its viewers?

I never cared once during Warcraft. But I’m not too sure I was meant to care for something so heartless and sequel-obsessed. Perhaps to its creators, Blizzard Entertainment, Warcraft: The Beginning is just an excuse to ‘create content’ that ‘extends the brand’ and ‘adds value’ to the ‘core business’ of their video game series. What unfolds on-screen is exactly that: nothing but an opportune cash-grab at the Game of Thrones zeitgeist. Or the Clash of Clanszeitgeist. Who fucking knows anymore?