Warcraft Review – 4 Ups And 6 Downs
1. The Video Game Inflections Are Well Balanced
Its a rule that every movie based on a game has to have some bit that contrives a key gameplaying mechanic into the story: Angry Birds was all about reclaiming eggs; Mario managed to namecheck everything in the most insensitive way possible; even Battleship had that ridiculous grid bit.
Warcraft predictably does this too, but its nowhere near as distracting or dominant as those examples. There's a nice extended shot where we see the orcs sacking villages from the same overhead angle as the game and other, smaller visual tics (like the spell casting and the way the hulking characters interact) provide nice acknowledgement to Warcraft's original medium without being out of place in the movie itself.
It's a shame the same cant be said about the other big thing that comes from the source. And that brings us neatly to the downs...