Reviews | Superior Realities

For me, this is a movie twenty years in the making. I was five years old when I started playing Warcraft games. I’m nearly twenty-six now. “Highly anticipated” doesn’t quite describe it.

Still, it’s here. It’s actually really happening. Let’s see if I can put my thoughts into something resembling a coherent order.

Right away, everything about this movie just oozes the very essence of Warcraft. The moment the lights go down and the music swells, it’s like stepping into Orgrimmar. This is Warcraft.

And that’s true throughout the whole film. Everything about the look and feel and sound of it is quintessentially Warcraft.

To begin with, the movie follows the events of the First War pretty well. Having destroyed Draenor, the Orcs must find a new world. Gul’dan opens the Dark Portal so that they may claim Azeroth as their own. The humans in their way are but fodder for the fel.

But it doesn’t take long for things to start diverging from the original lore, in ways both big and small. For the most part I didn’t find the changes too egregious. In fact, there’s one change near the end I liked quite a lot. It may actually make for a better story than the original.

Some other things do disappoint me, though. Warcraft the film is not nearly dark enough. The story of the First War is an epic tragedy, and while the movie makes some admirable nods to that, it’s ultimately still closer to a standard action movie than the grim tone of the First War.

I also have to agree with the common criticism that the movie is rushed. I’ve heard nearly an hour was cut from the film, and it definitely shows. Things skip ahead far too quickly at times, and some big changes happen without sufficient explanation or foreshadowing.

But don’t think it’s all bad news. Far from it.

By far the highlight of this movie is the Orcs. They are executed perfectly, from their visuals to their culture. I’m very glad that Duncan Jones chose to show that the Orcs are not simpler monsters, that they are unlike humans but still a multi-faceted people. The film puts a special emphasis on showing their keen sense of honour, and how it defines who they are.

Durotan and Draka are well-done, but while they get the most attention, they’re not actually the most interesting of the Orcs.

I love how the movie depicted Orgrim Doomhammer, whom I have long felt is one of the most interesting characters of Warcraft lore. The exact events in this film don’t exactly match the original story, but the spirit of the character is captured perfectly — his conflicted nature, his moral ambiguity. His darkness, and his honour.

What really surprised me is how great Garona is. Going in, I was expecting her to be a weak point for the movie, but they put a very interesting spin on her character, and Paula Patton’s performance is really strong. I like original Garona, but movie Garona is much better.

And Daniel Wu’s Gul’dan is just pitch perfect. Absolutely perfect. He is a villain as terrifying as he is despicable. Darkness Incarnate indeed.

The human cast members are a bit more inconsistent.

I liked Khadgar. He feels recognizable as the character I know, and his portrayal in the movie is very endearing.

Medivh and Llane’s depictions are adequate, but not spectacular. I rather liked the grace and poise of Queen Taria, who is to the best of my knowledge a new character created for the film, but she didn’t get enough screen time.

I’m torn on Travis Fimmel’s Lothar. He’s a very good actor, and the character he plays is very charming and exciting to watch. The standard wise-cracking action hero, but a good rendition of the old archetype.

But whoever he’s playing, it’s not Lothar. The character in the movie bears no resemblance to Sir Anduin Lothar, the Lion of Stormwind, grizzled veteran and elder statesman of the Alliance.

There are a few other things to appreciate in the Warcraft movie. The visuals are spectacular. The soundtrack is one of the best I’ve ever heard. The action is fantastically brutal and visceral. When Orgrim smashes someone with the Doomhammer, you feel it.

And there are a lot of nice Easter eggs for the fans. I particularly liked seeing Tammis Foxton at the very end. That they went to the trouble of finding an actor who strongly resembles Foxton just for that one little shot is really impressive.

So in the end, this movie is typically Warcraft: It’s flawed, but when it hits its stride, it’s glorious.

I definitely recommend this movie. Even if you’re not a Warcraft fan. Especially if you’re not a Warcraft fan — you’ll have nothing to compare it to.

Overall rating: 8/10

It’s been quite a while since the last Warcraft novel was released. They seemed to pretty much skip having any tie-ins for Warlords of Draenor and go straight to Legion stories. Given what a debacle WoD has been, that may have been the wisest choice.

But Warcraft literature has come roaring back with the simply titled Illidan, written by franchise newcomer William King.

Illidan, naturally enough, focuses on the story of Illidan, essentially serving to fill in the blanks of everything we didn’t see of his story in the games, especially during the Burning Crusade era.

It also does a lot to flesh out the story of the demon hunters, granting the reader a glimpse of how desperately driven one has to be to choose such a life, and the terrible price they pay for their power.

There is also much attention given to Maiev Shadowsong and her never-ending need to take vengeance upon Illidan.

What struck me most about this book is how incredibly dark it is. William King pulls no punches when it comes to either the brutality of combat or the tortured mental states of the characters.

Nobody in this book is sane. That much is clear early on. You can clearly see how ten thousand years of solitary confinement have warped Illidan’s mind. A nice touch is that Illidan will often pace for exactly nine paces — the length of his cell. Even after achieving his freedom, he can’t break the habit.

Yet despite all he’s suffered, all his narcissism and his ruthlessness, Illidan is ultimately the most sane character in the story.

The demon hunters amount to a sanitarium population given weapons and trained to kill without mercy. I’m sure you’re picturing a very bizarre, very frightening bunch, but trust me, they’re weirder and scarier than you’re imagining.

But no one’s madness can equal that of Maiev Shadowsong. King takes every possible opportunity to showcase how every waking moment of Maiev’s life is defined by naught by rampant paranoia and unquenchable hatred. How other people can never be anything but tools to her in her endless quest for vengeance.

Illidan’s imprisonment has warped him, yes, but Maiev also spent ten thousand years in darkness, and she did so willingly. She built a cage of her own hatred and locked the door behind herself.

I’ve never liked Maiev, but Illidan has really shown me what a monster she truly is.

The dark, twisted nature of Illidan is what makes it memorable, though. This was never going to be happy story, but King makes it not just dark but gloriously dark. It is a gripping, if sometimes horrifying, story, and much as I admire the previous Warcraft authors, King’s macabre style is a welcome change of pace from Christie’s Golden’s emotive stories or Knaak’s rollicking adventures.

Illidan is also the first time in quite a while that the Burning Legion has actually seemed scary, and that is long overdue. Seeing them through Illidan’s eyes — almost literally — illustrates just how horrific they are, how hopeless it is to oppose them.

And that shows you just how amazingly strong, how utterly determined and cunning, Illidan must be to oppose them even still.

All that said, the book does still have its rough edges.

By necessity given the amount of time it covers, the story jumps around a lot and is therefore somewhat disjointed. No one who hasn’t played the games would be able to make sense of it all.

Inevitably, the ending is quite a downer, and it paints players as villains almost as much as Mists of Pandaria did. That may not have been possible to avoid given the existing lore, but what could have been avoided was how incomplete the ending is. It amounts to a giant neon “BUY LEGION TO SEE HOW IT ENDS” sign.

It does increasingly feel as if the Warcraft novels are being used as advertisements for the game as much as tools to expand the lore. That’s a worrying trend, and Illidan is the most egregious example to date.

Finally, the story of the main demon hunter character, a Night Elf named Vandel, could have been handled better. It offers some good insights into the demon hunters themselves and how they become what they are, but once that’s done, his story doesn’t really go anywhere. It has no climax or satisfying conclusion.

Still, on the whole, Illidan was a pretty enjoyable read.

Overal rating: 8.3/10

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Review: Warcraft (Film)

Review: Warcraft, Illidan

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