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.
Published: Jun 10, 2016 08:12 pm