'Warcraft' has surprisingly little craft

Parents of young children: Have you ever been called into the room by your child to have him/her attempt to explain the intricacies of the current game-of-choice, only to be deluged with phrases, terms and expressions that immediately place your brain in paralysis and your unblinking eyes roll back into a thousand-yard stare as you robotically drop the occasional “uh-huh” into the conversation to feign the slightest bit of interest?

Envision listening to that droning, meandering tale for about two nonstop hours and you will begin to capture the essence of “Warcraft,” Universal’s big tentpole picture that further cements the cinematic legacy that video games do not a movie make. You can also see the money hemorrhaging in this misguided take of the popular Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPGs for those in the know) as scene after CGI-rendered scene is packed with pixels.

The tale from concept to screen proves far more interesting than anything you will witness during its runtime: about a decade ago, Universal scooped up the rights to the game, hoping it's success would translate into box-office gold, and placed director Sam Raimi (“Spider-Man”) in the driver’s seat. After he bailed, the studio put stock into Duncan Jones, who directed the sci-fi cult favorite “Moon,” and was a professed devotee of the game. It was originally slated for late last year, but then some little film called “The Force Awakens” muscled in on its turf, and “Warcraft” was confidently placed to kick off the summer of 2016.

For those who are unfamiliar with the source material, we are in a “Lord of the Rings”-like realm, with Orcs who (despite their stately British accents), resemble an evolutionary outtake of a warthog and an American Gladiator but are apparently quite intelligent. The do resemble humans in their ability to blindly follow their leader despite the countless clues to his evil nature.

Realizing their land has limited resources, a few Orcs decide to rip open a time portal and zip on over to the human-led world of Azoreth, and soon much blood is shed, much culture has clashed and many swords are swung in what feels like a bonus disc of deleted battle scenes from “The Hobbit” franchise.

But “Warcraft's” real issue is its presumptive dialogue. Considering every new locale looks just like the one preceding it, lines like “I am Northern Morningstar, son of Deegon Rottenfury the Forsaken” carry no weight, as we have no idea why or who they are, where they came from or where any of this is going. This may be fine with those who spent countless darkened hours to become an online “blood elf,” but those of us wanting to be entertained for a couple hours feel like we must go home and spend the rest of the night searching the World of Warcraft Wiki for definitions.

On the human side of the scale we have a generic warrior named Lothar (played by Travis Fimmel) who is racing to the reclusive mystic Obi Wan Ke… I mean, Medivh (played by Ben Foster, never louder). Medivh senses a great disturbance in the For...land and warns that war is forthcoming.

On and on it goes, with new names, locations and digital cretins that the filmmakers try to make us care about as they scaffold a sequel potential toward the conclusion. And while maybe some die-hard gamers may clamor for a return to the world of “Warcraft,” I cannot envision a newcomer hungry for some hot orc-on-orc action. For all the war it boasts, there is surprisingly little craft to be found here.