Warcraft

What happens when a true talent royally screws up an ambitious movie hes staking his reputation on? Itll look something like this massively expensive ($160 million) and mostly worthless film version of a role-playing video game thats been losing steam for half a decade. And yet there is not a minute of Warcraft, featuring a battle between humans and invading, tusk-mouthed orcs, in which you cant feel director Duncan Jones straining to bring soul to his computer-generated canvas. Close, but no cigar.

A word about Jones. His first two films, 2009s Moon and 2011s Source Code, are minimalist sci-fi gems. How did he get infected by the gigantism of Warcraft? For starters, Jones is a lifelong gamer who shared his enthusiasm with his late dad, David Bowie. Jones wanted his movie to have heroes and villains on both sides of the war, to turn an escapist fantasy on its silly head and fill it with ferocity and feeling.

Not happening. Whats onscreen is a godawful mess, leaving the actors to suck wind while the film collapses around them. If youve never played the game, you might as well watch the movie stoned. (At least you wont feel the pain.) Jones puts his best orc forward. That would be the warrior chief Durotan, energetically acted in motion capture by Toby Kebbell. The humongous giant gets an aww moment early on, when his wife, Draka (Anna Galvin), delivers the cutest orc baby.

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But enough fluff. Durotan tells us in voiceover: Our world was dying, and I had to find my clan a new home. That leads Guldan (Daniel Wu), the evil warlock lord of the orcs, to open a portal into Azeroth, where humans live in peace. Durotan wants to make nice. Guldan doesnt. He wants blood. Its war!

Durotan has a human mirror-image in Anduin Lothar (Travis Fimmel of TVs Vikings), a knight who loyally serves his king and queen (Dominic Cooper and Ruth Negga) and worries that his grown son, Callan (Burkely Duffield), will die in battle. Lothan still finds time to get it on with Garona (Paula Patton), a half-orc, half-human warrior. Patton must play her ridiculous role with green skin and two novelty-store fangs that keep rendering her dialogue unintelligible, which might be a blessing given the mouthfuls of expository dialogue cooked up by Jones and co-writer Charles Leavitt. And did I mention Medivh (Ben Foster), the wizard Guardian of Azeroth who also has a son-like protege in Khadgar (Ben Schnetzer, one of the films few bright spots), a kid who trusts no one. For good reason. Like Gildan, Medivh is siphoning the life force from those he should serve.

Who siphoned the life force out of this movie? Did the studio interfere? Was Jones forced to jam a better, much longer movie into a two-hour compromise that appears to have been put together by editors using blunt instruments and wearing blindfolds? The result is an indigestible stew that blends Warcraft with elements of Avatar, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings and every escapist fantasy that ever managed to find an audience. Jones is too good to perish in the ash of this big bombola. Hell live to fight another day. Though the ending begs for a sequel, my guess is that this film franchise wont be so lucky. You leave Warcraft with two words ringing in your ear: Game over.