The Warcraft movie gets analyzed by VFX artists who have both praise and criticism.
The VFX issues may have contributed to its mixed reception.
A team of VFX artists from Corridor Crew took a look at the 2016 Warcraft movie adaptation. While they acknowledged some successes in character designs, they had sharp critiques. They pointed out issues like faulty motion blurring and a lack of clear cause and effect in fight scenes, which made the movie “a garbled mess”. The movie’s lighting was also criticized as being too nicely lit.
The VFX issues had a significant impact on Warcraft. Domestically, it failed to earn enough against its $160 million budget, making just $43 million. However, it did see success overseas with about $440 million worldwide. But the domestic failure led to disappointment. After marketing and theater cuts, it needed around $450 million to break even, and since it didn’t reach that mark, Warcraft 2 was never confirmed. Critics cited VFX issues and difficulty distinguishing Orcs as reasons for their negative reviews. Even though audiences were somewhat favorable with a 76% score on Rotten Tomatoes, the movie earned only a 29% Tomatometer score.
The Warcraft movie had other problems besides VFX. The story was lacking, major characters were hard to define or distinguish, and the world felt derivative of The Lord of the Rings. The lack of weight in combat made the action feel unimpactful. The motion blur was poorly done, fights lacked gravity, and the lighting detracted from the grit. Overall, the movie deserved better, but a lack of balance in various aspects led to its failure.
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