Why All Video Game Movies Have Sucked So Far, According To One Warcraft Star
Video game movies don’t exactly have the best track records in Hollywood. While it’s true that there have been more than a handful of financially successful titles, to date there has not been a single one that has received a majority of positive marks from professional critics. There are surely many different theories to explain this - from incorrect interpretations of specific elements, to the talent level of the individuals involved with the various productions - but Warcraft star Robert Kazinsky has a theory of his own to explain why they’ve all been disappointing: the approach towards attempting to jam hours and hours of storytelling into a feature-length narrative.
Back in March of 2014, I joined a small group of other journalists to visit the set of the still-in-production Warcraft film, and it was while sitting down for an interview that Kazinsky revealed his thoughts on the history of the video game movie genre. The actor – who plays the Orc known as Orgrim in the blockbuster – was asked about any specific details from the source material that needed to be tweaked in order to better fit the feature format, and he used the question as a launching point to discuss why it is that we haven’t actually seen a good movie based on a game just yet:
Robert Kazinsky went on to admit that there were, unfortunately, elements of Warcraft that needed to be changed for the movie, and some specific and interesting details had to be skipped over. He lamented that they weren’t able to make something 50 times as long with all of the material, but even admitted to himself that it wouldn’t necessarily be watchable. Said the actor,
The good news is that while the Warcraft film doesn’t include every single little detail featured from the game, Robert Kazinsky still feels as though the film has pulled out what is really essential about the long-running franchise, and is an experience that both gamers and non-gamers alike will be able to appreciate:
We’ll find out if Warcraft has what it takes to end the bad streak of video game movies when the film arrives in theaters on June 10, 2016.
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Eric Eisenberg is the Assistant Managing Editor at CinemaBlend. After graduating Boston University and earning a bachelor’s degree in journalism, he took a part-time job as a staff writer for CinemaBlend, and after six months was offered the opportunity to move to Los Angeles and take on a newly created West Coast Editor position. Over a decade later, he's continuing to advance his interests and expertise. In addition to conducting filmmaker interviews and contributing to the news and feature content of the site, Eric also oversees the Movie Reviews section, writes the the weekend box office report (published Sundays), and is the site's resident Stephen King expert. He has two King-related columns.