REVIEW: Warcraft : The Beginning (12A)

Legendary MMORPG computer game World of Warcraft hit’s the silver screen albeit a little bit later to cash in on its heyday a few years ago. Firmly planting itself as the go-to guy for fantasy movies (in the gaping hole left by The Hobbit trilogy), Warcraft: The Beginning features more CGI than (probably) the game itself, and has plenty of little nods and nuances to the game if you’re a seasoned player. However, it tries to cram as much as it can into its decent runtime and leaves the casual viewer slightly perplexed and thinking that it’s not as good as Lord of the Rings.

My alarm bells started ringing when I saw the trailer for this movie – ages ago, and since then I’ve probably seen it a hundred times to the point I started to get sick of it. A concern of mine is that many movies release a couple of different content trailers to whet the appetite of potential cinema goers – but the trailer for Warcraft never changed so we never saw anything new. I’m not sure if the person who made the trailer was so proud of it they never wanted to change it – but this wasn’t a good sign – I mean surely there were some more good parts to the movie we could get to at least see more than the orcs and the same dialogue over again. However, even though I had reservations, the movie wasn’t as bad as I expected.

Warcraft: The Beginning promises that there will be a sequel purely from its tag line – and if they make Warcraft: The Middle and Warcraft: The End then I think I will boycott them. However, it’s also seriously sassy to assume that there will be a sequel regardless. I guess Blizzard could probably afford to make another even if this one bombs since they have a best-selling game on their hands.

I am not an avid Warcraft player, though I have dabbled in it, and I’m not very familiar with the lore of Warcraft either. I have played other MMORPG’s but not spent enough time with the characters of Warcraft to be familiar with them. As a result, some of what I’m about to tell you I have been told by others, so if it’s incorrect or slightly out, I apologise in advance.

The movie starts with some weird necromancer Orc person (think a dodgy Emperor Palpatine) who has been sucking the life out of the world in which he lives with other Orcs and as a result the world is dying. He decides to open a portal to another world and decides to take over it using his army so he can continue to get power and continue to live. Meanwhile, top dog Orc, Durotan, takes umbrage at this, and wants to protect “his people” and starts a mini uprising within the ranks as he knows that this Necromancer Orc is bad news.

Durotan is not the only person to not be happy about this impending invasion. The humans on the other side of the portal aren’t happy about this evasion either. King Llane Wrynn (Dominic Cooper) gets wind of this through Khadagar, who was once a really good wizard, but for story purposes isn’t now. Arranging an army to tackle this head on, the Guardian, Medivh (who I would describe as a poor man’s Gandalf) and Anduin Lothar (Wannabe Aragorn) join forces to help their king against this oncoming Horde. However all is not what it seems – some alliances are forged, some friendships are broken, and there’s a green baby somewhere involved in proceedings.

The king, played by Dominic Cooper, seems legit, but doesn’t have the feel of power or clout you would anticipate with a king and looks a bit too pretty in his armour to be taken seriously. The grand Guardian looks like he should be in a rock band, and is too young to be an awesome wizard he is supposed to be. The only characters who hold any defining characterisation are the wannabe Aragorn, the turncoat orc and a half human/orc fighter woman, Garona (Paula Patton). Even so, they seem to be woefully under developed, especially human/orc woman who could have been used so much better than she was, even though she is literally two letters away from actually being Gamora from Guardians of the Galaxy – with funky teeth.

Overall this movie is a special effect laden movie that is a decent fantasy movie that holds extra value if you are a Warcraft fan but can be a bit confusing if not. However, it’s called Warcraft: The Beginning for a reason, so expect some more soon. Lord of the Rings for the gamer generation; this movie is a decent stab at the fantasy genre but is far too paint by numbers fantasy to be considered a classic. Fans of the game will enjoy the nods and Easter eggs hidden or referenced in the movie, but for the casual movie goer it's a medi-Orc-re fantasy flick that'll make up for the lack of new Lord of the Rings movies. Not bad.

POPSCORE: 7/10

What am I talking about? Warcraft: The Beginning movie
Where can I find out more? http://www.warcraftmovie.com
If you liked this try: The Hobbit trilogy, Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Mummy trilogy

Anything else?

Warcraft: The Beginning is based on the World of Warcraft MMORPG, and includes characters, places and spells from that games lore

BYTE: A-May-Zing May!

Welcome to May - it's spring time and summer is round the corner!

Time for some movie blockbusters MAYbe?

 

Well, let's be honest Avengers: Age of Ultron will take some beating. have you seen it yet? Finnally you guys in the US have got to see it too - and it looks like it's going to be a (Hulk) smash hit!  The next anticipated behemoth of a movie is Star Wars in December. But you don't have to wait that long to get a superhero fix as Ant-Man and Fantastic Four will be popping by over the summer. If you wap in the Minions Movie and the new "in-your-head" Pixar movie, we still have some things to look forward to.

 

It's been a crazy month so far with no signs of stopping. We are only three days in and we've had the birth of the royal baby - a little princess who is yet to be named. I'm going for Scarlett Diana, but who knows?

 

Sadly though, we've also lost people - the legendary Ben E King (famous for Stand By Me, one of my favourite songs from the 60's), the iconic writer Ruth Rendell and Rebecca Ferdinand, Rio Ferdinand's wife have all passed away the last few days. Sad times, and our thoughts at P&TP HQ are with their families. #RIP

 

There's a lot of stuff going on in this month too. Yesterday it was World Free Comic Book Day and I picked up quite a few free comics. I had picked up Secret Wars #0, and Avengers one, a 2000AD one and others at my local Forbidden Planet. Did you get to get some too? If not, don't worry - it happens every year so make sure you're up bright and early for next time. And, the following two days later (or tomorrow as I write this) is May 4th - which is Star Wars Day. I had to explain this to someone - May The Force... May the Fourth... oh never mind. If you are a member of Star Wars: The Old Republic MMORPG (like myself - unfortunately my character is called StarJediLord - sorry; but feel free to add ;-) ) they are doing some celebrations, so get logged on for some free digital swag, including, I hear, a free droid. Meanwhile if you are misty eyed about Knights of The Old Republic, the awesome game from a few years ago, Google Play is selling it on Android for the ridiculously low price of £2.33 (not sure how long for) - check it out https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.aspyr.swkotor. 

 

In the UK, on May 7th we are having a General Election, and, 5 years ago, I tried setting up a blog and my first post was all about it. Sadly, the blog never got past about 4 entries, and, as an homage to that, I might rerelease one of the movie reviews I did back then for you. I reckon, one of them was Iron Man 2 but I could be wrong.

 

Looking at the latest stuff as well:

>   Xbox Live:  Games with Gold this month includes the full game of Mafia II on XBOX 360 and for the posh 'uns who have XBOX ONE you are treated to Pool Nation FX (still) and Castle Storm Definitive Edition to download free if you are a subscriber.

>  PSN: PS Plus this month hasn't really updated just yet so nothing new to report on this front. Though you can get Destiny for £24.99 if you don't already have it.

 

If you want a free game for your PC, and you like the Ultima series, you can get a free digital copy of Ultima 8 by signing up to EA's Origin and you can download it for free - it's an initiative they have called "On The House". If you do sign up, they do this regularly so it might be worth keeping the account. We've had quite a few games already and my collection is building up - but most of them are older games, but still goodies. Hey, what do you want for free? Please note, though, I am not sure if this would work outside the UK but you could always have a crack to see if it does.  

 

As always we have Loot Crate and Nerd Block unboxings to look forward to...

 

...AND Marvel Collector Corps!

Anyway I've wrote enough now - have a MINT MAY and I'll see you soon.

 

Keep being awesome!

 

Until next time

Paul

BYTE: Merry March

Hey guys

It's been the calm before the storm for me and a quiet week geek-wise. I've been mourning the passing of Orange Wednesdays at the cinema.  I have been trying to find out more about the tease of Compare the Market doing it - after seeing the meerkat advert at the cinema last week. No news has come forward so far so as soon as I find out I will let you know.

Meanwhile, on the movie front, I think I have not seen a movie this week! I'm so letting you down. However, Avengers: Age of Ultron trailer 3 dropped and is whetting our appetite even further. If you are eagle eyed, or good with the pause button, you will get to see a glimpse of The Vision at the end of the trailer. Also, I'm going to see the new Divergent film, Insurgent soon, so there will be a full review of that.

As for the blog and stuff, well, I've managed to add my logo to the blog, and I hope you like it. I'm still working on the vlogging stuff - I have purchased some software to have a crack at learning editing before I get cracking unleashing my presenting skills onto the unknowing internet. I've set up a Facebook Page, but I will have to get the page address - it's the one with the Paul & The Popcorn logo on of course! And while you are there - don't forget to follow me on Twitter too - @paulandpopcorn if you haven't already. Once I get the youtube up and running I'll bring all the links together.

Also, fancy some free stuff? I've been looking about and I've seen that:

> Google Play is celebrating 3 years of existence - so you can get a free download of Fast and Furious movie (handy since the 7th instalment is being broadcast to a cinema near you in the very near future). Some amendments to this though - a) you will need a google play account that's active (I got this offer through the email) and b) it's not the first one but the one without the "The"'s in it from 2009.

> Origin: If you are registered with Origin you can get a free "on the house" copy of early 1990's classic Syndicate for free download for a limited time.

>  PSN: PS Plus this month has updated now and the new roster of games for the PS formats are:
Sherlock Holmes: Crimes And Punishments and Papa & Yo on PS3 and Oddworld: New 'n' Tasty (what?!) and Valiant Hearts: The Great War on PS4.
If you're into multi format there is also OlliOlli2: Welcome To Olliwood bundled for PS4/Vita and the triple bundle for all three of a game called CounterSpy. Of course these are active while your subscription is and will cease working if you are not a member.
PSN Store also have a special offer on Final Fantasy games for the moment too - do now's your time to get some of those FF gaps in your collection filled. As always, these are for a limited time and access/costs may be dependent on whether you are a subscriber or not so check first before purchase.

>   Xbox Live:  Games with Gold this month hosts the full game of Tomb Raider on XBOX 360 and for the posh 'uns who have XBOX ONE you are treated to Rayman Legends and #IDARB to download free if you are a subscriber.

Also I've signed up to Star Wars Online - that is, The Old Republic AKA SWTOR so if you'd like to join me on there - add paulosolo and you can explore the galaxy with me. I have been playing it this week and am at the grand old rank of level 10. I'm a Jedi Sentinel so it means I can use two lightsabers. That's gotta be good, hasn't it? If you play - let me know what you think.

Anyway that's enough update for now; hopefully next week I will get my rather fetching Paul & The Popcorn T-Shirt, but who knows?

Until next time

Paul