10 Reasons Why Warcraft: The Beginning Might Be The Worst Film Of The Year So Far

Duncan Jones is a rare kind of filmmaker. Unsullied by the often cynical business he's in, he always seems genuinely surprised and elated that he gets to be a movie director for a living. He's the nice guy of sci-fi, a down-to-earth nerds' nerd that seem like he might actually be, as he claims, a hardcore World of Warcraft-er. Which is why it's so hard to trash his latest movie. Don't worry, though, Jones is going to be OK. He's still a proven talent, and there's good reason to believe - despite his insistence that he's a big Warcraft fan - that he chiefly made the film in order to get the backing for his upcoming passion project, Mute. All the same, it can't be ignored what a colossal failure Warcraft: The Beginning is, in almost every way you can imagine. Narrowing it down some, here are ten key reasons why it could actually be the worst film of the year so far. 10) The Film Tries To Do Too Much, And Fails At All Of It You have to at least admire Duncan Jones' guts: Warcraft is a huge undertaking. Imagine the daunting task of trying to establish an entire universe, sympathetically set up distinct characters in two very different warring factions, lay the groundwork for a new franchise and tell a compelling story, all in one movie. It's something an experienced blockbuster director might balk at. Probably the biggest compliment you can pay the movie is that it's ambitious. Unfortunately, not all of its ambitions pay off. Warcraft doesn't manage to do any of what it sets out to do: the universe is not well-established, we don't ever sympathize with the (many) characters, there's nothing in the film that really warrants a sequel and the story is most definitely not compelling. 9) It's Confusing Jones has admitted his original cut of the movie ran at 2 hours and 40 minutes. The film, as it stands, is just over two hours long, meaning almost a third of it was scrapped in order to streamline for theatrical release. Jones claims his longer version fleshes the story out better. Whether you believe that or not, upon seeing the film you might well wonder if a less confusing version of the plot could be found in those excised 40 minutes. Often, it feels like Jones' familiarity with Warcraft might also be a hindrance. His film assumes even casual moviegoers will already know the workings of that world and its numerous factions. It's a bold assumption, as anyone not familiar with the game will probably be scratching their head for a good portion of the movie. 8) The Characters Are Horribly Written Jones has admitted that, upon receiving the original Warcraft script, he - disappointed - immediately set about rewriting it. You have to wonder just how bad that script must have been, because the screenplay that Jones worked on and eventually decided passed muster for shooting is still absolutely terrible. Worst of all is the character work, though. After two hours, we really have no idea who anybody is. Travis Fimmel's human warrior Lorath, Paula Patton's half human/half orc hybrid Garona, Toby Kebbell's orc hero Durotan, Dominic Cooper's King Llane, Ben Foster's wizard Medivh - all of them are noticeably lacking a personality, and all are made to spout some near-unbearably bland dialogue. 7) And Their Actions Make No Sense No spoilers here, but there are crosses and double-crosses galore in Warcraft: The Beginning. Characters betray one another for no discernible reason, then later backtrack and re-form former ties. They become enemies and even kill each other for reasons that are never totally clear. One key problem is that Jones fails to properly establish his universe, so we don't always understand why the characters behave as they do. For one, the soul-sucking energy force called "The Fel" is never fully explained, and yet it influences characters left and right. We also never really get to know the codes and customs of the human and orc tribes - that's knowledge which might have come in useful for basically all of the film. 6) The Acting Predictably, when the Warcraft characters are so poorly written and the script is just so plainly bad, you get below-par acting to go along with it. Toby Kebbell and Robert Kozinsky, as our two orc heroes, do well enough with the shoddy material they've been handed, but everyone else fares dreadfully. The best that can be said about anyone other than Kebbell and Kozinsky is that Ruth Negga and Ben Schnetzer are usually wonderful actors who've been miscast. Otherwise, Travis Fimmel, Paula Patton, Dominic Cooper and the usually reliable Ben Foster are outstandingly bad. If you want to see what pay check acting looks like, here it is. 5) The Accents No actor is on the same page in Warcraft, and arguably nowhere is this more evident than in the accents the various cast members use. Rather than go for a standard dialect to lend the film some coherence, everyone is speaking something different in this movie. Ben Foster, Ben Schnetzer and Paula Patton, American, all use their native accents. Dominic Cooper, Toby Kebbell and Robert Kazinsky, use English. Ruth Negga, meanwhile, speaks with an Irish accent, while Travis Fimmel, Australian, never seems to know what accent he's doing. Put it all together, and you get a perplexing sound soup, the various ingredients never coming together to make anything satisfying. 4) It's Unintentionally Hilarious Go into Warcraft imagining it's a comedy and you might have a marginally better time than those people who are trying to take it seriously. That's because this movie is full of unintentionally laughable moments, several of which stand a good chance of being meme-i-fied in the near future. (unfortunately, that may be the only way Warcraft could have any lasting appeal.) Ben Foster provides many of the funnies, as the notorious method actor brings his usual Day-Lewis-style intensity to a role which requires he fires lightning from his hands and grow giant horns out of his head. The moment with the most meme potential, however, has to be when Dominic Cooper's King randomly summons a giant bird from the sky with the desperately serious line, "Here, take one of my eagles!" Look out for it online in the near future. 3) The Action Sequences Are A Mess If a fantasy blockbuster epic is going to get something right, it has to be the action sequences, right? Well, actually, in the case of Warcraft, that's wrong. It's always a risk when execs take a punt on a filmmaker tackling big-budget cinema for the first time, especially when their action chops are largely untested. Unfortunately, in the case of Duncan Jones, the gamble hasn't paid off. The action sequences in Warcraft are clumsy, badly edited and often blurry, Jones, on this evidence, certainly isn't a natural action director. Even worse, though, is how unimaginative his set pieces are, recalling Lord of the Rings at its worst (though no LOTR action scene is as bad as any of Warcraft's) and video game skirmishes. 2) So Are The Effects When nearly every frame of the film involves special effects work, bad CGI becomes a problem. Had Warcraft been made by someone with the skill and experience of, say, James Cameron, the extensive FX probably wouldn't have been such a major hindrance. However, handled by Jones, a novice in that department, the effects work is very much an issue. To put it bluntly, the effects are wretched. The film's orcs and dwarves rarely look more convincing that figures you might find in video game cutscenes. Worse is that some, like Clancy Brown's orc mage Blackhand, look no better than in-game characters. The environments are little better, but they're still dull, lazy LOTR-style grand cities and orc camps, with clearly faux backdrops. 1) It Looks Cheap It'll always be a mystery how they managed it, but the Warcraft team have somehow made $160 million look cheap. Recalling The Chronicles of Riddick, a (relatively) big-budget sci-fi that somehow ended up looking like a made-for-TV movie from SyFy, Warcraft: The Beginning is an enormous waste of cash. There are obvious sets, plastic props, and seemingly no one was keeping an eye on the hair situation, as the many styles range from Pink Floyd tribute band member to hipster to army recruit. So not only is Warcraft cheap-looking, but it's also infuriatingly inconsistent (again, see: those accents).