Film Review: Warcraft: The Beginning

"Is War The Only Answer?"

When it comes to past live-action video game adaptations that have made it on to the big screen within the past, let's say the record has not been the best so far. I mean look at Hitman: Agent 47 last year, what a load of rubbish that was and whilst others have trembled in the wake of mediocrity or downright awfulness, 2016 was tapped as the year for the reinvention of the genre with not only Assassins Creed hitting the big screen but Warcraft too, helmed by self-proclaimed fan Duncan Jones, director of sci-fi greats such as Moon and Source Code. Although I can admit to never playing a single second of Warcraft in the past, Jones' behemoth of a summer blockbuster was a surprising popcorn romp, one that indeed has a wide range of flaws and weaknesses, but one that was never challenging or seemed to be verging on the edge of boredom throughout its' questionable two-hour plus runtime. CGI galore and Flash Gordon esque costume design. What more does one want?

Amidst unpronounceable locations and names, Warcraft essentially focuses on the battle between Orcs and humans, coincided with some pretty funky CGI magic and featuring warlocks, wizards and flying eagle bird things within the realm of what is essentially a rip-off of Middle Earth. The Lord of the Rings comparisons do not stop there however, with similar themes and even similar characters resulting in a fundamental likeness on the surface but Warcraft falters on the scale of the latter's depth where even though there were some characters worth caring about, others simply acted either as canon fodder for giant hammers or as a tent-pole for extraordinarily polished suits of armour. Warcraft is set to be the starter pistol for another heavy-hitter of a blockbuster series and although it is indeed not perfect, far off in fact, Warcraft does the job and does it solidly, smashing humans to pieces as it traverses the world of humans in the 21st century. Over to you Assassins Creed, let's see if you can do better. 

Overall Score: 6/10

Film Review: Hitman: Agent 47

Bald Stone Killer

When it comes to big-screen adaptations of world-famous video games it is well established that such films tend not to do so well both in the critical and commercial sense with the biggest examples being the terrible Silent Hill series, the shockingly dour Max Payne, and the Resident Evil series, which although stands out as being one of the better transformations from console to cinema, has slowly been hung, drawn and quartered resulting in its' most recent entries seemingly being squeezed so far from its' original format, they are only a shadow of the much more superior games in which they first were presented upon. Adding to the spectacular face-palm-esque bundle of video game movies this week is Hitman: Agent 47, a film which follows in the footsteps of its' brothers' in arms by being not only shockingly terrible, but single-handedly tainting the excellence of the video games in which it is based upon (I mean Hitman: Blood Money was rather brill right?). Remember the first Hitman movie adaptation released a few years ago? Well that is Citizen Kane in comparison to this dull, lacklustre excuse of a movie in which its' only real purpose in life is to pursue the bucks of those who desire the original games so dearly.

So in terms of plot, Rupert Friend plays Agent 47, a joyless, lifeless, emotionless, hairless killer raised under the wing of geneticist Dr. Peter Litvenko (Hinds) who after years of hiding is located by Syndicate leader Antoine LeClerq who sends T-1000 rip-off John Smith (Quinto) to track him down in order to use his vast knowledge of the Agent programme and create his own personal army of silent assassins. Boring, boring, boring. Also in there somewhere is a plot thread about Litvenko's daughter but to be honest, I care as much about the plot of this film as the team obviously did behind making it with Agent 47 being a constant cycle of cliche after cliche, cringe-worthy speech after cringe-worthy speech and acting so wooden, I was surprised none of the actors came out petrified at the end of it. Add into the mix awful CGI, a overload of pointless violence, and quotes (The "what you do that defines you" speech from Batman Begins), scenes (The metal detector/gun scene from The Matrix) and characters (T-1000 from Terminator 2: Judgement Day) just stolen from other, and subsequently better movies, Hitman: Agent 47 is nothing more than overlong Audi commercial which just happened to find the rights to one of the biggest video games since the birth of gaming. Incredibly awful.

Overall Score: 2/10