movies | 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 getting a little tiresome to repeat variations of the same story, but here it goes again: Looper is a movie that looked interesting to me when it first released, but I missed out on it because of my Real Life issues at the time. Now it’s on Shomi, so I gave it a shot.

Looper is set thirty years in the future, but much of the story has its roots thirty years past then. It is then that time travel will be invented, and subsequently outlawed. This makes time travel the domain of the mafia. Since bodies are nearly impossible to dispose of discretely in the ultra-connected future, the mob eliminates its enemies by sending them back thirty years, where they are killed by “Loopers.”

Our protagonist — if you can even call him that — is Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), a junkie supporting himself by working as a Looper. Things go off the rails for him when he is sent to “close his loop,” to kill his future self (Bruce Willis). A moment’s hesitation allows the older Joe to escape.

Future Joe has a plan of his own. He’s after the Rainmaker, a mysterious crime lord who ordered his death, and murdered his wife in the process. Thirty years in the past, the Rainmaker is just a child, and future Joe intends to pull some Terminator shenanigans.

There are plenty of interesting ideas in Looper. It’s a novel take on time travel. And the performances are very strong. I really like Jospeh Gordon-Levitt. He’s a great actor.

I also very much like its down to earth yet futuristic art design. It’s a very believable vision of what the 2040s might look lie.

But.

The problem with Looper is that it’s a movie that doesn’t know what it wants to be. It’s trying to be both an action movie and a thought-provoking piece of sci-fi, and not really succeeding at either.

There are some big plot holes in Looper. Supposedly the mob sends people back in time because it’s impossible to get away with murder in the future, but somehow this isn’t an issue when they kill Joe’s wife. And if the mafia has time travel, why haven’t they used it for anything better than disposing of people they don’t like?

And really there’s just nothing about the movie that gets the mind going. There are no big questions posed. It feels like a movie that wants to make you think, but it doesn’t.

So it doesn’t work as a think-piece, but at the same time, Looper is also too convoluted, dark, and slow-paced to work as a popcorn movie.

And that’s not the only way in which it’s confused. The first half of the movie seems to be entirely about Joe — both versions of him — and their bizarre conflict, but the latter half shifts focus to the Rainmaker, and in the end Joe is just a prop for his story.

And most of all, the movie is just too long. You could have cut an half hour out and not lost anything, I think.

To be fair, the ending of Looper is clever and very powerful. But boy is it a long walk to get there.

Overall rating: 6.9/10 I don’t regret seeing it, but I’m not sure I’d recommend it, either.

Superior Realities

Tag Archives: movies

Review: Warcraft (Film)

Retro Review: Looper

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