Just as Leonard Cohen does not appeal to everyone, so there is a certain type of movies that does not appeal to me. Contrary to my better judgement or even to the usual type of movies I certainly recognise as something I love, co-workers recommended and in fact pushed me to watch this new movie extravaganza, which happens to be huge multi-million, mega-super-blockbuster that apparently excited my colleagues very much and they insisted I should check it out, because they liked it and in fact found it very exciting & thrilling. No doubt, it works for some people but alas, dear reader, I have seen too many movies in my life and suffer from a syndrome called movie-overdose where almost everything reminds me of something else previously seen and I can quickly (with a yawn) pinpoint where certain director took his inspiration from. No wonder, in a rare moments when I'm inspired to check something out, it is usually not a new production but something black & white, obscure and forgotten - that kind of movies still excites and thrills me for the simple reason that I value ideas, inspiration and sheer thrill of enjoying the story/acting more than I value any new computer animation gimmick or CGI that might appear breath-taking but in fact its just a cellophane.
"Warcraft" is no better or worse from many similar action/adventure movies, except that it looks decently attractive - kind of combination between "Lord of the the Rings" and "Avatar" if you need to compare it with anything - and accordingly to its roots in popular video game, the movie does not insist too much on characterisation, psychological insight and motivation. We have no clue why people behave the way they behave, in fact we don't even have idea who they are: strangely for something that has been carefully planned for almost a decade (the project was officially announced in 2006) there is no introduction to this fantasy world and not even courteous, considerate attempt to explain the main protagonists and why is everyone running left and right. What we see are groups of random people (and computer-animated monsters with strong, protruding tusks) grunting to each other something like "We have to save Tharamon", "No, we have to fight Draghonon" and "Let's kill Morodor" while the audience is left guessing what's going on and you feel as too embarrassed to even ask, since its supposed to be world-famous video game and obviously you are not one of the cool people.
Moi, I spend my free time reading - and doing anything else under the sun, like cleaning the bathroom floor, talking to my dog, dancing in the kitchen to Tom Jones on the radio, pulling things out of my navel - but playing video games. Looking back, the last time I actually played video games was 35 years ago, when I was twelve and quickly realised that this invention might drive me to obsession & madness. So I never gave up to the dark side and decidedly ignored this form of entertainment, choosing life without it. I can live without video games and lots of other things - I lived trough 1980s and 1990s without ever buying into myth of either Michael Jackson or Madonna, for example - if they both appeared at my doorstep, bringing video games as a gift (with a star of Betlehem above their heads) I would still be unconvinced. So all this Tharamon, Draghonon and Morodor (along with abundance of computer animated, ripped muscles, swords, chain mail and green blood) actually left me unmoved, even worse, initial mild curiosity was soon replaced with exhaustion. I honestly couldn't care less are they running left, right or upside down, this is was simply not entertaining enough to care for characters who (Ramin Djawadi's sweeping music suggest) should be taken seriously but were, in fact, outlined so sketchy that it felt as reading cartoon.
Perhaps we are simply already too tired with the whole CGI phenomenon. It was fine when "Lord of the Rings" first came along and I can still recall almost orgasmic excitement sweeping the auditorium when Gandalf, riding the white horse, came rolling down the mountain towards besieged city but that was than. We have seen zillion computer animation, tricks, gimmicks and visual spectacles since, in fact, its exactly because of the overdose of CGI that you start seriously pondering is that all there is, is this how cinema production changes and metamorphoses? Into never-ending visual titillation? I never thought "Avatar" was so revolutionary as they claimed, because after all, half of it was cartoon and sorry, don't try to sell me a cartoon as a serious movie with a message (it was new rehash of old Cowboys & Indians story anyway). The fact that this type of movies gets huge audiences all over the world - millions of people actually go to cinema to watch this - just points at power of merchandising, advertisements and hype. Than again, its too late to complain now - for years cinema production has been geared towards teenage population until all we have left is "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" and we hardly even see anything with real people acting anything resembling life. So this is where we are at this point, computer-animated super heroes saving the world with magic, swords and grunts. This is cinema today, apparently very popular. I seriously think it can't get worse than this and perhaps something will happen, if audience decided hey let's go back to actually acting, storytelling and maybe even simplicity is not such a bad idea.
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