Warcraft

Inspired by the massively popular World of Warcraft—a long-running PC-based video game—Warcraft revolves around a race of gigantic warrior beasts called Orcs, who flee from their dying homeland of Draenor, after the warlock Gul'dan (Daniel Wu) opens a portal to Azeroth, where they will battle unsuspecting humans, led by war-chieftain Blackhand (Clancy Brown). Only the Orc soldier Durotan (Toby Kebbell) maintains that peace can be achieved through compromise with King Llane (Dominic Cooper) and Lady Taria (Ruth Negga), whose brother is the noble knight Anduin Lothar (Travis Fimmel). Meanwhile, Lothar's son (Burkely Duffield) is determined to impress his father on the battlefield, and Durotan's mate (Anna Galvin) has a baby. Also in the mix are the ascetic Azeroth wizard Medivh (Ben Foster), his young apprentice Khadgar (Ben Schnetzer), and a fanged green-skinned female named Garona (Paula Patton), who claims to be half-Orc/half-human. Drawing on Chris Metzen's branded characters and story, British director/co-writer Duncan Jones (David Bowie's son) overloads the fantasy/sci-fi plot with too many mythical creatures, magical subplots, and visual effects in a curiously campy film that is ultimately too much war and too little craft. Not recommended. [Note: DVD/Blu-ray extras include deleted and extended scenes (14 min.), behind-the-scenes featurettes on “The Fandom” (7 min.) and “Origin Story” (5 min.), a gag reel (4 min.), an “ILM: Behind the Magic” special effects segment (3 min.), and trailers. Exclusive to the Blu-ray release is a “Warcraft: Bonds of Brotherhood” motion comic (54 min.), “The World of Warcraft on Film” production featurettes (29 min.), a segment on “The Madame Tussauds Experience” (8 min.), and bonus DVD, digital, and UltraViolet copies of the film. Bottom line: a solid extras package for a rather lame fantasy flick.] (S. Granger)