VGFlicks: Warcraft (Part 2)

Continuing from Part 1 - go read it if you haven't.

Only getting worse from here

"Capture me if you must, but please, no violence in front
of my baby!" - Durotan (not really)

The aftermath of the overpass battle: Durotan is now considered a traitor to the Horde, but offers himself to let the other Frostwolves go free. Orgrim is offered to be the new leader, but he is reticent to both that and accepting the Fel from Gul’Dan. Untrusting of them, Gul’Dan orders the Frostwolves’ encampment burned and its inhabitants killed or imprisoned, but Orgrim has enough time to warn Durotan’s wife Draka so she can flee with her infant. As for the humans? Lothar is drinking his family loss away. And Garona, staying by Medivh’s bedside, learns that the Guardian traveled to a lot of realms in his youth and even found love… in her world.

Medivh and Garona's  relationship as father and daughter
is one of the few things to be merely implied by the movie
but stated openly in its novelization.

Yeah, one change to this adaptation is the implication that the protector of Azeroth is Garona’s father, rather than her lover as is the case in the games/comics. Then again, over there, Garona is half-Draenei rather than half-human, but that’s delving a little deep into the lore of a franchise I have little experience with, so I’m really going off of what I’ve learned. It’s a couple floors lower on the Warcraft iceberg than I’m willing to go. And considering how debated their union in the games/comics is… well, let’s just say it’s less of a headache to make them NOT lovers here. As a bonus, if he’s her dad, Garona born a green-skinned orc foreshadows that Medivh has been battling corruption from the Fel for a long time.

Instead, Medivh gives Garona some parting gifts then teleports her back to Stormwind so she can console Lothar in his darkest moments. With her orc heritage, Garona respects a warrior who’s both honorable and skilled, and her view of Lothar has evolved into something beyond mere respect. As shown later, he reciprocates. The film implies they become lovers. The novelization outright states they consummate. (For once, if I can avoid using the F-word...)

The mage Khadgar is facing? You can't see from this distance,
but Archmage Antonidas' eyes are perpetually glowing.
Must be a bother if he ever tries to sleep at night.

Meanwhile, Khadgar returns to Kirin Tor to expose Medivh’s use of the Fel to the council. Since the mage defected, the wizards aren’t keen on listening to him, but he brandishes the one page he saved and mentions Alodi, a being older than time itself. Archmade Antonidas takes the mage to a mysterious black cube that reacts to the presence and opens, and Khadgar steps in. Within it, he meets Alodi (portrayed by Glenn Close, uncredited), who says that the Guardian has betrayed this land through his corruption to the death magic. Medivh must be stopped, but Khadgar will need help. Sure enough, when we cut to Karazhan, we see Medivh overtaken by the rotting magic, to the point he turns his pool of mana green, grows horns in his beard (what a stupid place for horns, come on!), and even kills his own servant through a lifeforce sap!

Medivh pulling the right strings, manipulating to have Lothar
unable to interfere with his plans. Real villain stuff.

The Guardian later shows up to a war briefing where Llane, cool-headed, and a drunk Lothar are butting heads over which strategy to use. Medivh lies about dissention growing among the orcs following Durotan’s attempt at diplomacy, and that there are hopes of destroying the gate they’re building. The grief-stricken commander and the Guardian argue and nearly fight, so Llane gets Lothar thrown in a cell so he can sober up. The commander is later visited by Garona, who will join the battle; he begs her to come back alive.

Not sure some jail time will help Lothar get over his son's
death. The drunkenness, that's a diffeent story.

A history of Garona, beginning to middle to end of film. (The
middle armor includes shoulder protection in fight scenes.)

Hey, one cool thing about this film that doesn’t get mentioned enough: When Garona is in her orc garb, yeah, it looks like little more than bikini-style cavewoman clothing, but once she joins the humans, the armor she wears is practical and covers her body better, and other clothes she's seen wearing are modest and quite regal even. So while there is an element of fanservice to her at first, it’s nice to see that she gets moved out of that. The film prioritizes the need of the story above the possibility for eye candy. Not that she doesn’t still look great (despite the fangs) in armor and in regular clothes either way.

Mak’gora

Storylines converge; maybe it won’t be as much of a headache for me to write. Llane heads out to battle, while Medivh returns to Karazhan to "prepare". Orgrim frees Durotan from the prison the “traitor” had been thrown in, and the chieftain aims for a final desperation tactic to get orcs to leave Gul’Dan’s side. Khadgar frees Lothar from jail (by turning the guard into a sheep with a spell that lasts about a minute – a nod to the same spell in the games working for 60, and later 50, seconds), then draws runes to teleport them to Karazhan to kill the demon eating at the Guardian. Draka, on the run from Fel orcs and carrying her baby, leaves the child in a floating basket on a nearby river just before she’s attacked. She kills the green orc, but she’s also stabbed and dies.

Quite a few named folks don't see this story to the end.

Go, Durotan! Kick his ass!
(Spoiler: He doesn't get to.)

Durotan challenges Gul’Dan to a mak’gora, a duel to the death between orcs. The rules: Each combatant is allowed one weapon; body armor and all magic are forbidden; and the fight goes on till either dies. The warlock disrobes, showing that under the hunched wizard look he was actually ripped, muscles and back spikes the result of Fel mutations. The fight begins, and though Durotan holds his own, the warlock proves tougher than expected. Still, the chieftain lasts as long as possible, to a point where Gul’Dan cheats by using the Fel on him. But from the warlock’s reaction, this was muscle memory and unintentional.

That's a death glomp if I've ever seen one.

Meanwhile, Khadgar and Lothar appear in Karazhan, where Medivh is already chanting the spell that will open the gate between worlds – the same spell that brought the orcs to Azeroth in the first place. Yep, he was responsible for that. At the orcs’ encampment, the portal begins to open, so Gul’Dan, in a hurry and forbidden from leaving the mak’gora, saps Durotan’s life force. The chieftain calls him without honor for doing this, so the warlock responds by sucking his life force dry, dropping the chieftain dead. This revolts the orcs, who now see the warlock for what he really is – a power-hungry monster. Some of the green orcs call him out, only for him to murder them; as shown earlier, a Fel user can kill anyone who’s been empowered by its green glow. This makes the green orcs fall back in line out of fear. In almost the same breath, he empowers Blackhand with his death magic, fusing the orc’s makeshift prosthetic with his body and allowing him to use it like a real hand.

The human army has arrived, King Llane at the front, so the orcs attack on Gul’Dan’s orders. Having seen how efficient the weapon was, the humans have equipped themselves with boomsticks, which really helps their side. While war is raging below, the orc warlock saps the energy of captives to finish opening the portal, making a doorway for the remainder of the Horde.

The final battles

Yeah, he doesn't look much like a good guy anymore.
Before the beard horns, he could at leas pretend the part.

Hey, Lothar still managed to cut the golem's head clean off.
Impressive for a human against a literal rock monster.

Lothar and Khadgar are unable to stop the Guardian from casting his spell. It's getting worse; remember that golem I offhandedly mentioned when we first met Medivh? Yeah, it’s coming alive. Lothar fares well against the golem; Khadgar against Medivh, not so much. They switch targets, working towards a plan; now the commander tries to appeal to the Guardian’s humanity underneath all that corruption, while the mage draws up runes for a teleportation spell.

According to Warcraft lore (which I admittedly know very
little about), that demon is the avatar of Sargeras. If you
know the games, it growing from Medivh's body is nothing
new, but that it appears in the film is a pretty big deal.

Tossed across the room (and the pond of green mana), the knight says just the right words and seems to get to Medivh through the demon, but the few seconds of clarity are taken over by the monster. Thankfully, Khadgar’s trap activates and the golem, teleported above the demon, crushes him. Khadgar exorcises the beast out of the disgraced Guardian, and is almost possessed by the fel in the process. After making sure the apprentice hasn’t also been overtaken by the dark magic, Lothar leaves on a gryphon’s back to the war scene. This leaves Khadgar to accompany Medivh in his drying breaths, which the Guardian uses to retake the portal at the orcs’ village and direct it to Stormwind, giving the humans an out in the battle they’re badly losing.

At least he's back to normal in death.

In the middle of a warzone, he's set on freeing innocents
above fighting the Horde. Llane may be one of my
favorite fictional Kings of all time.

Despite having the option to flee, Llane takes the high road and asks the knights to free the orcs’ prisoners and send them through first. They do this as long as the portal is open, but when Medivh dies, the gateway closes, leaving the king, the half-breed and the knights trapped. Seeing Blackhand making a beeline through the Horde towards him, Llane comes to a conclusion: Garona must kill him. This will earn her the honor of the Horde, putting her in a higher position among her kind, perhaps allowing for peace in the long run. Reluctantly, she does it just as Blackhand is mere feet from them... and with the dagger the Queen had gifted her, no less. …damn, that’s some heartbreaking use of a Chekov’s Gun.

You have no idea how much of a goddamn headache
it was to grab this screenshot.

Llane had guessed right, Garona gets hailed as a hero by the orcs for this. Problem is, since the King came up with that plan on the spot, none of the knights know about it – so they now see Garona as a traitor. ...Oopsie! That’s when Lothar arrives on the gryphon, killing orcs with ease until he sees the King’s body, still with the dagger in his neck. Well, so much for that interspecies romance, huh? He gets the corpse on the gryphon to carry back home so the Horde won’t defile it, but Blackhand knocks the creature down.

Doesn't matter how big or strong or dangerous a male orc is;
slice his goddamn balls open, it's gonna hurt. Cheap shot?
Nah, Lothar just played it smart.

When the commander comes to, Blackhand is requesting a mak’gora. After a brief moment staring down each other, both holding a severe grudge, they run. Using his smarts, the knight slides onto his knees, sword raised, and slices the orc’s groin. Yeowch! Blackhand is a monster, but damn! I almost feel sorry for the dude! Lothar knew where to strike for an easy win! In pain, Blackhand is too distracted to see Lothar come from behind and kill him with a quick stab in the back. Well… This was cool but a little anticlimactic. Fight lasted a  minute, tops.

Say what you want about the orcs, but they like their sense
of honor and they show it to whoever deserves it.

Gul’Dan requests the orcs kill the knight, who has noticed Garona by her kind’s side, but the half-breed reminds the warlock that mak’gora is a sacred tradition and the orcs will honor the results and respect the winner of such a battle. The shots of Lothar walking through the crowd of giant monstrous green orcs putting their fist to their heart in reverence to the human who was just another easy pickings earlier is very powerful. In opposition, Gul’Dan loses any remaining shred of respect from the Horde by going against the honor-driven species’ traditions. Lothar leaves on the gryphon, carrying Llane’s body back to Stormwind.

This war goes on to this very day... er... 29 years later.

Back home, Lothar discusses with Khadgar about what he thinks is Garona’s betrayal (though the mage has his doubts) and the kingdom mourns its King. With a heavy heart and facing the kingdoms of this world, Lothar, promoted, raises his sword and declares “For Azeroth!” Not only isn’t this war over, it has only begun. (And considering the following games in the series, it’s only gonna get worse from there.)

Fun fact: This film is sometimes titled Warcraft: The Beginning, implying there were hopes for a sequel. The director, Duncan Jones, was aiming for a trilogy. Almost seven years later, and still no word on that…

Oh! And to properly close every storyline, we see what happens to Durotan and Draka’s baby: He is found in the river by a human family. The baby’s name? Go’el. Players of the franchise might know him better under his more famous name… Thrall.

"Rawr!"

Final words

This was a challenge to write. Not just because I wanted to keep it short in spite of the multi-faceted story, but also because, as I said, fantasy epics aren’t my genre of predilection. The best praise I can give this film is that, in spite of that lack of interest for the genre, it’s kept me invested. (Sure, it always happen when I watch a film 3-4 times in order to write a review, but whatever.) Final verdict is that it’s not that bad! I think it’s decent, yeah.

The film isn't lacking in emotion, the stakes are high,
the characters are likeable and there are genuinely good
twists and turns to the plot.

The plot had me invested after a while, and once I really got down all the names of characters and their personalities, all the places, all the ins and outs of that world, the film became much more enjoyable, even for a peon like me who has never touched a Warcraft game in his entire life. But then again, a case could be made that if I didn’t have supplementary material by my side to really understand everything, the film could have felt too dense details-wise. So, going back to my first paragraphs, regarding the four goals Warcraft had...

Does it adapt the story of the first game? Well, from what I’ve read it ditches some elements that would further bloat the plot, elements that would be more fitting if this was a multi-episode series rather than a two-hour film, but everything it keeps still makes for a cohesive, complete plot where every major character has closure to their arc in some way. I don’t think I can properly discuss whether the film integrates well the lore that would be added through later games, though there are definitely nods to Warcraft gameplay here and there. As an example, the flash of light around Khadgar when he successfully exorcises Medivh looks like a player character’s level-up glow in World of Warcraft.

*Level-up BWOWM is heard*

The one true mixed bag is whether it cuts out enough to fit a feature length without losing uninitiated viewers along the way; it’s a lot to take in, especially if you’re watching it for the first time. It’s a lot easier to understand on repeated viewings, but that it may take such to fully grasp the story says quite a bit. That said, the film does everything to respect the source material and, to me, that’s important.

It doesn't win being compared to other fantasy films and other fantasy epics, but judged on its own (and as an adaptation of a 1994 RTS game), it's a very well-made film.

Seriously, the level of detail on the CGI characters is
astounding.

The actors voicing the orcs all do pretty great work, but the live actors’ performances range in quality. None outright bad, some just okay, but a few stand out; Dominic Cooper as King Llane is a great example. That said, the special effects are top-notch, from the ultra-detailed orcs and other CGI creatures, to the physical interactions between them and the live actors. As well, several locations are breathtaking to see. The film’s score is also excellent, helping give the film the feel of the series it’s inspired by. Say what you want about the film, how average it may be or how it doesn’t measure up to classic fantasy epics, we can tell there was a lot of effort put into it and everyone, from directors to SFX artists to actors, wanted this to be a good product. And for all it’s worth, I respect effort. And Warcraft deserves that respect, even if it’s imperfect.

Phew! Alright, that’s one down. Still planning to review two more films early in 2023… see you (hopefully) soon for the next.