6) Warcraft
Duncan Jones came into Warcraft with lofty, noble intentions. In his desire to give Blizzard Entertainment’s wickedly popular multiplayer online role-playing game franchise the epic, sprawling cinematic dramatization that many fans, including Jones, have craved for years, the Moon/Source Code filmmaker opted to make his own Tolkienesque adventure fantasy that would dazzle the screen, expand upon its beloved universe and inspire the next generation of video game-based film adaptations.
Unfortunately, Warcraft wasn’t that movie. Instead, it was a bloated, disorientating, frustrating and ultimately boring, if wildly ambitious and often optimistic, hundred million-plus dollar failure that, alongside the similarly meandering Assassin’s Creed, proved (or, at least suggested) that maybe – just maybe – video games will never find a comfortable, withstanding home in the multiplex.
Overstuffed with mythology, overcome with dull performances (minus Toby Kebbell’s empathetic, impressionistic orc, Durotan, realized beautifully in state-of-the-art motion-capture technology) and overstimulated with its wide-reaching universe, which never quite feels as homey and immersive as Middle-Earth, even in The Hobbit adaptations, Warcraft was overwhelming and underwhelming all at once — an eyesore, an incessant, derivative bore, and, at times, an admirable failure from one of the most promising, if temporarily misguided, young directors in Hollywood.
Here’s hoping Netflix’s forthcoming Mute, another passion project from the blooming filmmaker, lives up to its own high expectations.