‘Warcraft’ Trailer: Orcs And Monsters And Battles, Oh My!
Back in the day, I knew a handful of people who failed a college class or lost a job because they were too busy playingWorld of Warcraft. In a weird, dark way, that’s the biggest compliment you can give Blizzard’s long running video game franchise – the world of Azeroth was so compelling and addictive that people damaged their lives to inhabit it.
So the upcomingWarcraftmovie has to appease an army of the faithful, the fans who commanded the Orc and human legions in the classic real-time strategy games and quested as individual heroes in the massively multiplayer online role-playing game. More importantly, it also has to convince regular audiences to take a chance on a complex high fantasy world full of its own unique rules. It worked out well forThe Lord of the Rings, but the more colorful, sillier world ofWarcraftmay be a tougher sell.
The firstWarcrafttrailer is here. Sharpen your opinions and get ready for war.
Warcraftis the third film from directorDuncan Jones, who previously made the remarkable science fiction dramaMoonand the very goodSource Code. He’s a technically ambitious filmmaker with an eye for character – he’s an inspired choice for this material. Also, Jones hasn’t been shy about reshapingWarcraft’s screenplay to give more focus to the Orc characters, which makes him our kind of guy. Who wants to play as the squeaky clean humans when you can pillage and destroy as an army of giant green people?
Watch the trailer for yourself right here:
And it looks, well,fine. The footage here is colorful and vibrant, but there’s an artificiality to it. So many of those big battle scenes look like there were shot in front of a green screen in an enclosed studio. Those Orcs, while impressive in single shots, look like walking cartoons en masse. However,Warcraftis still over six months away and you know that visual effects guys will be rendering until the last possible moment. We’re less worried about the visual effects and more concerned about how familiar it all feels. The trailer is cut like it’sThe Hobbitwhen it should be giving off its own unique flavor.
Then again, if we had a dime for every single time a trailer didn’t accurately portray a movie we ended up loving, we’d have about $7.60.
The first footage fromWarcraftpremiered at Comic-Con earlier this year andit left the audience baffled. Even those who appreciated the technical grandeur of what was on display were hopelessly lost by the story and the characters. By all accounts, those 10 minutes from the film threw everyone into the deep end before teaching them how to swim. If a movie is too impenetrable to win over a Hall H crowd, how will it fare with normal folks whohaveto see this thing for it to be a hit? That’s the problem facingWarcraftright now and it could be the reasonUniversalapparently thinks of it as a “problem movie.”
But we trust in Jones. Few modern filmmakers have showcased such strong genre instincts. Whether the trailer works for you or not, watching him tackle high fantasy should be worth the price of admission.Warcraftmay end up being a lot of things, but lazy and boring probably won’t be the adjectives everyone uses.
Warcraftwill rampage into theaters onJune 10, 2016. The cast includesTravis Fimmelas Anduin Lothar,Ben Fosteras Medivh,Paula Pattonas Garona,Toby Kebbellas Durotan,Dominic Cooperas Llane Wrynn,Ruth Neggaas Lady Tario, andRobert Kazinskyas Orgrim. It also features the greatClancy Brownplaying a vicious Orc chieftain named Blackhand, which the exact kind of casting that should give you half-a-cup of faith that this movie will something special.
