32
Metascore
40 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 60The Hollywood ReporterSheri LindenThe Hollywood ReporterSheri LindenThe movie is character-driven every step of the way. That’s why, even if the world created by Jones and his talented design collaborators, both old-school physical and cutting-edge digital, isn’t seamlessly believable so much as staggeringly crafted, it casts a spell.
- 60Total FilmKevin HarleyTotal FilmKevin HarleyTasked with brokering a peace between event-sized thrills, gaming lore and high fantasy, Jones embraces Warcraft’s world with laudable commitment: but when it comes to charging it with life, sheer bulk gets the better of him.
- 50The PlaylistRuss FischerThe PlaylistRuss FischerWarcraft may provide grand, thunderous spectacle as it transforms human actors into hulking Orcs, but when trying to perform the alchemy of transmuting genre archetypes into characters with soul, the magic fizzles out.
- 40Screen DailyJohn HazeltonScreen DailyJohn HazeltonThe film takes a long time to build dramatic momentum and gets interrupted by what seem like unnecessary plot points; some of them, perhaps, geared towards potential sequels.
- 40The GuardianThe GuardianDirector Duncan Jones, a self-professed Warcraft fan, has clearly put a lot of love and care into fleshing out a story, but it’s questionable whether it was ever really merited. There’s a terminal flimsiness, as if this virtually-derived world hasn’t quite assumed three dimensions.
- 40The TelegraphHelen O'HaraThe TelegraphHelen O'HaraThe pristine setting never meshes with Jones’s efforts to give emotional reality to his army of characters, who cannot escape their tropes: leader, hero, warrior woman, mystic.
- 40Time Out LondonTom HuddlestonTime Out LondonTom HuddlestonThe total absence of originality here is notable, but it needn’t have been a problem: with a tighter plot, a touch of humour and some peppier, less slab-fisted action scenes this might actually have worked – a kind of Guardians of the Galaxy meets Lord of the Rings.
- 40EmpireOlly RichardsEmpireOlly RichardsThe ambition is laudible, but it's to little end. At once empty and impenetrable, this brings to mind a mix of John Carter and Dungeons And Dragons, regrettably in both themes and level of enjoyment.
- 30VarietyGeoff BerkshireVarietyGeoff BerkshireSo good at making the most outlandish elements of his first two films seem completely credible, Jones can’t find a way to get this cartoony spectacle to soar. His heartfelt approach to the material only underlines the silliness.
- 10TheWrapAlonso DuraldeTheWrapAlonso DuraldeImagine “Battlefield Earth” without the verve and you get this sludgy, tedious fantasy adventure, a fun-starved dud that’s not even unintentionally hilarious.