The science-fiction chamber piece Moon was so good that it seemed its director, Duncan Jones, might become known for something other than being David Bowie’s son. Warcraft: the Beginning, based on the online role-playing phenomenon that had up to 12 million players at its height, makes one altogether less hopeful. Until there is a film of Tetris or KerPlunk, no big-screen game adaptation will be able to count me among its target audience. Even so, a movie version of anything, be it a book, play or video game, should be comprehensible to viewers with no knowledge of the original entity. The Pirates of the Caribbean series was adapted from a theme-park ride and that still managed to make sense. Warcraft: the Beginning – don’t you just love that optimistic subtitle? – is likely to be unintelligible to anyone who hasn’t spent their lives tenderly caressing a console.
The action takes place in two worlds, human and orc, both of which are rendered with the cheapest-looking CGI and crummiest sets ever to have reached the screen. (When someone says, “It’s good to see trees again,” you’re tempted to laugh. Only in an infant-school Nativity might those pass for trees.) The humans are divided into those with RSC accents, such as the King (Dominic Cooper) and his Queen (Ruth Negga), and the rest, including the warrior Anduin (Travis Fimmel). “That was cheery,” Anduin will say after a bleak anecdote. Or: “That went well,” after something didn’t. There’s no beginning to his wisecracks.
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