Warcraft is a movie based on the hit video game known as World of Warcraft, or as some may call it, WOW. The movie derives around the human race and orcs. The individual races happen to live in separate worlds, but somehow there is a portal that connects the orc world to the human world known as Azeroth. The orcs leave their dying world, entering the human world. Although the humans feel that these orcs are monsters that could potentially destroy their world, therefore causing tension between the groups and increasing chances of war breaking out.

Let’s talk about something here, this movie is based on a video game, and I went to see one movie based on a video game last year and that movie was Hitman: Agent 47. That was probably one of the worst movies I’ve seen all year, and it shows what happens with video games when you turn them into movies, they seem to bomb. I even stand by my statement that Super Mario Bros.: The Movie is my least favorite movie ever made. This movie is better than both Mario and Hitman. Does that mean this is a good movie? I don’t think so. Also another thing that’s on my mind is the box office, if I saw this earlier I wouldn’t be talking about this, but I might as well now. On the opening weekend for this movie in the US, the movie made $24 million. That’s between 6 to 7 times less than the total amount of money it took to make this movie. However in China, the movie made $156 million. It shows a difference in taste in movies between the countries. If I had to guess, this probably happened due to the growth in IMAX theaters the country has seen over the past year, and this movie probably looked like it was going to be eye candy. I don’t investigate deep into the taste of the Chinese when it comes to movies, but I’m willing to bet that they appreciate effects more than story and characters. I’m not saying that’s wrong in any way, it makes them who they are.

Let’s get some detail between the orcs and humans. The main human in this movie is Anduin Lothar. Right now I kind of regret never playing the games, because if I had played them, I probably would have cared for his character more. Sure his world was being invaded, but you had orcs to care about when it came to their world.

Speaking of orcs, one was Antonidas, played by Toby Kebbell. He was the main orc that revolved around the movie. I have to say that he was very well designed in terms of CGI. One thing I liked about this dude is his voice matching well with the character. The orc was designed to be thick and the voice kept up with the orc’s physique. There were quite a few moments where I felt much more sympathy for his character as opposed to any of the human characters. After all, compared to the humans who had their world disturbed, the orcs had theirs dying, so it was easier to find sympathy for the orcs as a whole. One more thing about that voice though, if they ever plan to reboot Fantastic Four for a fourth time, I want to see him voice The Thing. Yeah, I know, he was in Fan4stic as Dr. Doom, but I don’t care.

Another character I remember a lot about from the movie is Garona. She is half-orc, half-draenei. One thing I found interesting about her is how similar she is to Gamora from “Guardians of the Galaxy.”First of all, they are both green. Second, they are both portrayed as love interests. There’s more but I won’t mention them because, well, spoilers.

My absolute favorite part about this movie is the visual effects. Knowing that this movie was from a flashy PC game, I was expecting visual effects that are basically the equivalent of the Star Wars prequels and the Lord of the Rings if they got together and had a baby. Although each was a trilogy so maybe they could each have one baby together. That’s basically what I got out of this movie. Looking at fire in this movie was awesome, seeing all sorts of magic in this movie was phenomenal, viewing certain CGI sets was eye candy. I remember seeing the concept art at least a year or two ago, and seeing all of that kind of made this movie go up the charts for me in terms of anticipation. There were times though were the effects could have been cleaned up. There was a huge fight at the end of the movie, lots of smoke and fire, along with characters fighting, it just felt kind of bloated. It works in a certain type of movie. I admit it works here, but the more I think about it today, it almost feels like a headache is rising in my brain.

In the end, if there is one thing I can take from the movie Warcraft, it’s that I shouldn’t judge it by the title. With a movie whose title has “war” in it, there’s not much war in the movie as a whole. There seems to be more talking in the movie, less fighting, but in the end I just didn’t have a perfect experience. I give Warcraft a 4/10. I’m giving it this score because as far as video game movies go, it definitely could be worse. Not to mention the movie had great technical aspects (except for sound in some instances) and fights, but characterization isn’t something to write home about. I just saw Independence Day: Resurgence today and I shall have a review up for that as soon as possible. Also, that movie was the first I saw in MX4D, or the Motion EFX Experience, so I’m gonna do a post on that sometime in the future. Stay tuned for those and more reviews coming up, so remember, Scene Before is your click to the flicks!