‘Warcraft’ sticks with simple story, fantasy world unfolds around it
Published 6:03 pm Wednesday, June 8, 2016
While I was watching “Warcraft” I kept thinking of “Dune,” and how David Lynch’s film adaptation became a bewildering series of place-names and minor characters. Eh, who is this Thrandor the Unready, and how does he relate to Farfel of Undersnort, exactly?
In carving a movie out of the humongous mythology of the “Warcraft” world (games, novels, comic books, online universes), director/co-writer Duncan Jones tries the opposite tack. Instead of trying to cram everything in, the film settles on a simple plot, allowing the sprawling fantasy world to unfold around it. Good call.
In the human realm of Azeroth, our hero is Lothar (Travis Fimmel, the star of “Vikings”), an offbeat presence: manly yet frequently on the verge of tears. His sister (Ruth Negga) is married to the wise young king (Dominic Cooper).
Through some kind of magical portal, an army of orcs is preparing to pour into Azeroth and raise heck. Orcs are daft-looking giants with undersized heads, bad hair, and horns sprouting from various body parts.
Instead of making the orcs monolithically evil, Jones puts us in sympathy with one orc warrior, Durotan, a family man. He’s “played” by Toby Kebbell, whose body has been replaced by a computer-generated creature (and yet still expresses a vivid emotional range).
Caught in between is green-skinned, pointy-eared Garona (Paula Patton), evidently multi-racial. The scene where she warns Lothar about the physical dangers of becoming intimate with her is genuinely funny — but why does the film fade out when the two seem on the verge of a later love scene? I was curious to see how Lothar would work around Garona’s fangs.
The wizard is Medivh (Ben Foster), whose magical powers are faltering a bit. Playing Luke Skywalker to his Obi-Wan is Khadgar (Ben Schnetzer), who is strong with the force, or whatever it’s called here.
Jones, who directed the micro-sci-fi classic “Moon,” is clever enough to instill humor wherever possible — but not in such a way that we aren’t invested in the outcome of all this. In short, he’s ingested the original “Star Wars” formula more wisely than many.
“Warcraft” doesn’t hit all its notes, and sometimes you can feel the mechanism groaning under the weight of this vast fantasy cosmos. But overall Jones does a decent job at telling a tale and summoning the spectacle of a 21st-century blockbuster. That’s more than you can say for the superhero movies released this year.
“Warcraft” 3 stars
The vast “Warcraft” mythology gets whittled down to a fairly simple storyline, around which a sprawling fantasy world unfolds. Director Duncan Jones deserves kudos for keeping it simple and often funny, even if the mechanism groans at times. With Travis Fimmel, Paula Patton.
Rating: PG-13, for violence
Showing: Alderwood Mall, Cinebarre, Everett, Monroe, Marysville, Meridian, Oak Tree, Pacific Place, Sundance Cinemas, Thornton Place, Woodinville
