Obscenely Expensive Video Game Adaptation From 2016 Is Now on Netflix
It’s a must-watch for fantasy lovers.
Even if you’re not a gamer, you can obviously notice that there is a huge trend for adapting video games for movies and TV shows. Fallout, The Last of Us, Tomb Raider, Uncharted and even Five Nights at Freddy’s - they all have their own adaptations now.
The more scale and worldbuilding a game has, the more money filmmakers need to make a decent movie based on it. However, sometimes the price is too high, but the result is not so satisfying, and it’s exactly what happened to the 2016 movie adaptation that has just landed on Netflix.
This fantasy starts by showing that the orc shaman Gul'dan opens a portal to the human realm of Azeroth and organizes his own conquering army to invade it. In order to protect their lands from orcs, people team up, headed by a mighty warrior and a wizard.
As the two races collide, some of humans and dissenting orc soldiers start to question the very reasonability of this war, what’s really behind this invasion and how to stop it.
Based on a best-selling game Warcraft (as you may have guessed already), it cost an unprecedented sum of $160M and failed to reach its break-even point of $450-500M, grossing only $439.1M. That’s why the filmmakers moved on, and, presumably, we won’t see another take on this game soon.
Besides, it fell victim to critics’ judgment, as they claimed the movie to be poorly written and paced, relying too much on its undoubtedly great visuals. It’s proved by its rotten status and a shameful score of 29% on Rotten Tomatoes.
However, the audience gave it a 76% of acclaim, and it means it is in fact not so bad. The orcs scenes are really entertaining here, the CGI and the landscapes can fully immerse you into the world of the game, while the action sequences are really spectacular.
It offers truly a wild ride, especially if you’re not a game geek who demands that the adaptation must strictly observe the game’s lore.
“I watched it with a friend who has never played WoW [World of Warcraft] but likes fantasy and she really enjoyed it,” says Redditor @Babid922.
It’s a nice fantasy, indeed, although there is no such greatness you can find in LOTR or House of the Dragon.
Check out this big budget take on Warcraft, as it is now available on Neftlix.