Warcraft

[Drunk Monk]

I totally get why this did so well in China and bombed here. It's got exactly the kind of bombast china likes now. You gotta LUV CGI to enjoy this. It's prolly best in 3D IMAX. Story wise, it poaches from everything - Harry Potter, LotR, Star Trek, Narnia, you name it. That's fresher for China. There's some swordfights and and amusing ultravi (at least as much as pg13 allows). I confess to be entertained by orcs smushing knights in armor like soda cans. The armor was cool. It doesn't end really, just teases the sequel.

It reminded me of a modern version of Krull, cheesey, dumb, yet amusing at points. If DOOM were teens today and went to movies together, we'd prolly see this and delight in our MST banter over it. Not extreme enough for old jaded DOOM now though.

Worthy of note, Warcraft stars Ruth Negga & Dominic Cooper from Preacher, and although they don't really shine in this like they do in that, it was amusing for me to see them in different roles.

[cranefly]

Thanks, DM, for falling on this tusk.  I'd heard Activision wanted to break into movies and was curious how this toe-dip turned out.  Sounds like they didn't totally strike out.  Saved by the Asian bell.

How's that for mixed metaphors?

Yeah, I can't really trust my movie ratings going back even a few years.  Our interests change so much over time.

[Drunk Monk]

Yes that's what DOOM is for, right? Jumping on tusks or sharing ivory. Yeah, another bad metaphor.

There was this whole noble savage theme with the orcs. It was very Klingon - honor, violence, pseudo warrior crap. Kinda racist but it's aliens or magical creatures so who cares? The only film that pulled it off well for me was Deadlands.