Tag Archives: Clancy Brown

TV Review: Dexter: New Blood 1.6 “Too Many Tuna Sandwiches” (dir by Marcos Siega)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

AGCK!  HARRISON BROKE THAT KID’S ARM!

Listen, a lot of interesting and important things happened on the latest episode of Dexter: New Blood.  Angela broke up with Dexter after revealing that she knew that Dexter was lying about his identity.  Dexter now has all the evidence that he needs to know that Kurt is a serial killer.  Kurt is continuing to bond with Harrison, to the extent that he’s now becoming as much of a father figure to Harrison as Dexter is.  The scene where Dexter and Harrison went to therapy together was classic, cringey Dexter.  Harrison and Audrey’s relationship is getting serious.  Hell, even Molly had something important to do this week.  There were a lot of good and memorable moments to be found in the sixth episode of Dexter: New Blood.

But what we’re always going to remember is Harrison coolly and efficiently snapping that kid’s arm.  Maybe it was the “crack” sound effect or that the show cut away just as the bone snapped but that totally freaked me out.  I’m just hoping the bone didn’t piece the skin.  God, I’m cringing just thinking about it.

Yes, Harrison definitely has some issues.  That’s been clear since the first episode.  With each subsequent episode, Harrison has gotten a little bit more openly violent, a little more openly insolent, and a little angrier.  Harrison is a time bomb and you have to wonder just what exactly Dexter is going to do about this.  Because his son seems like he’s going to snap eventually — ugh, snap.  Snap just like that kid’s arm….

The obvious solution would be for Dexter and son to go into business together, working as a team to take down murderers.  But is it too late for Dexter to do for Harrison what Harry did for him?  Dexter was raised for an early age to hunt down evildoers.  Harrison has developed his “dark passenger” without the benefit of guidance.  The entire town should be worried.

As for the rest of the episode, it was a good one.  It didn’t get bogged down in improbable coincidences like the previous episode and the story is definitely moving forward.  Dexter now knows that Kurt is a serial killer and, as a result of following Molly, he now knows where Kurt takes his victims.  But how long until Kurt figures out just who exactly Dexter is?  It’s going to happen.  Either Harrison is going to tell him or Kurt will figure it out on his own by listening to Molly’s podcast.  It’s obvious already that Kurt is going to do what he can to break up Harrison and Dexter …. in fact, he’s going to break up their uneasy relationship just as surely as Harrison broke that kid’s arm!  OH MY GOD!

Michael C. Hall and Jennifer Carpenter get and deserve a lot of praise for their work on Dexter.  Clancy Brown is doing good work as Kurt but that shouldn’t be a surprise, seeing as how he’s Clancy Brown.  But I have to say that the actor who is really taking me by surprise is Jack Alcott.  In previous episodes, Alcott has done a great job maintaining a balance between making Harrison sympathetic and making him petulant.  I mean, Harrison has been through a lot so it makes sense that he would not be the most emotionally stable character on the show and Alcott has done a good job of capturing Harrison’s unpredictable nature.  But last night, Alcott was briefly terrifying.  The look of pure hatred that went across Harrison’s face before he broke his opponent’s arm was genuinely scary.  And, of course, only Dexter and the audience noticed.  I’ll be interested to hear what Ghost Deb thinks about all this.

This was a good episode and I look forward to seeing what happens next week.  Will Harrison face any consequences or will he get away with yet another act of violence?  And how long until Kurt and Dexter have their final confrontation?

We’ll know soon enough!

TV Review: Dexter: New Blood 1.5 “Runaway” (dir by Marcos Siega)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

There was a lot of coincidences in the latest episode of Dexter.  In fact, I would argue that there were perhaps more coincidences than were necessary.

For instance, I can accept that — having killed his latest victim — Kurt would just happen to drive up on Harrison while the latter was trying to run away from home.  And I can accept that Kurt would possibly see Harrison as being a kindred spirit.  It’s not just that Harrison and Kurt both have homicidal tendencies.  It’s also that they’re both people who feel like they’re on the outside of normalcy looking in.  Harrison probably reminds Kurt of himself as a teenager and, by mentoring Harrison, it’s possible that Kurt can try to fix the mistakes that he made while raising Matt.  Either that or he just wants to make Harrison his new partner in his side hustle, murdering hitchhikers.

I can accept all of that.  I mean, this is Dexter that we’re talking about.  Dexter requires a certain suspension of disbelief in order for the show to work.  If you spend too much time focusing on the chances of two serial killers actually ending up in the same small town in upstate New York, you’re never going to have time to appreciate Dexter’s sense of the macabre.

However, the show also asked me to believe that Angela and Molly would just happen to be in New York at the same time as Angel (David Zayas) and that Angel would just happen to be talking about the murders previously committed by the man that Angela now knows as Jim Lindsay.  I mean, it was good to see Angel again and I’m glad he’s still wearing the hat but his sudden appearance was a bit too convenient.  It was also very convenient that, earlier in the episode, a drugged Harrison told Audrey that his father was using a fake name and that Audrey later told Angela, at the exact moment that Angela was having her first doubts about Jim/Dexter.  The episode ended with Angela printing out an old obituary for Dexter Morgan, one that featured Dexter’s picture.

From the start of Dexter: New Blood, it has been obvious that Angela was going to learn that Jim was actually Dexter.  We all knew it was going to happen but I was hoping that Angela would learn the secret as the result of her own investigations, as opposed to just happening to attend the same random conference as someone from Dexter’s past.  Audrey very easily could have just told Angela what Harrison told her and Angela could have then done some investigating on her own.  Having her randomly stumble across the truth felt like a bit of a disservice to the character.  It felt like the type of groan-worthy plot twist that far too often popped up during the final seasons of the show’s original run.

So, yes, I was a bit disappointed.  A lot of this episode felt like filler.  Dexter returned to his serial killer ways to take out a drug dealer but, in another coincidence, Logan showed up to arrest the dealer before Dexter could actually do his full ceremony.  (Interestingly enough, the same thing happened with Kurt when his latest victim refused to run when he ordered her to.)  So, Dexter had to force the man to overdose on drugs before making a hasty retreat.  That was probably for the best, considering that Dexter still hasn’t found a good place to dump the bodies.

Still, there were a few intriguing moments in this episode.  I’m liking the idea of Harrison having to potentially choose between two serial killing mentors and Clancy Brown continues to give a strong performance as Kurt.  And, regardless of how she discovered the information, I’m looking forward to seeing Angela confront Dexter.

One final note: I still don’t think Kurt is working alone.  I think Olsen is somehow involved.  It wouldn’t surprise me if Molly was somehow involved too.  Seriously, if Molly isn’t secretly a killer then she’s just an extremely annoying character.  On a show like this, it’s always better to be a killer as opposed to just annoying.  Either way, we’ll see what happens!

TV Review: Dexter: New Blood 1.4 “H is for Hero” (dir by Sanford Bookstaver)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Boom!  I predicted Harrison would be a budding serial killer so give it up for me!

Well, to be honest, I’m probably not the only person who predicted that.  I haven’t been reading any other reviews of Dexter: New Blood beyond my own but Harrison turning out to have a dark passenger shouldn’t be a shocking development to anyone who watched the original Dexter series.  The way that the Trinity Killer killed Rita was obviously designed to turn Harrison into a killer.  There was even an episode during season 5 in which Dexter investigated whether or not Trinity’s son had taken up his father’s bad habits.  (And let’s not forget that, in the books, Dexter quickly realized that Rita’s children were sociopaths.)  Harrison following in his father’s footsteps was something that was set in motion long ago.  It’s an inevitable development.  The only question really is whether or not Harrison has killed before or if his attempt to kill his high school friend was his first dry run.  And will Dexter forgive his son, partner with his son, destroy his son, or be destroyed by his son?

While I’m patting myself on the back for being correct about Harrison, I should also admit that it appears that I was wrong about the identity of the killer sniper.  I was sure that it was going to be Olsen but the end of this episode seems to suggest that it’s Kurt.  Of course, Kurt could be working with Olsen.  Considering what’s happened in past seasons of Dexter, it wouldn’t be a shock to discover that the Sniper is actually more than one man.  Perhaps Matt was a part of the organization as well.  I mean, he certainly was trigger happy.

It was a good episode.  I’m cringing a little bit at the character of Molly Park, if just because she sometimes seems like a boomer’s version of what a podcaster is like.  (“Those crazy kids, with their cursing and their drunk sex….”)  But, I do think there is some potential to her “alliance” with Angela.  I also felt the fallout of the school stabbing was handled well, particularly Harrison’s new status as the town hero.  In many ways, Harrison is living Dexter’s fantasy.  He’s killing (or nearly killing) and he’s being celebrated for it.  He’s a hero, just like Dexter always wanted to be.

(That said, even I could tell that Harrison obviously stabbed himself.  Have the people in this town never watched an old episode of CSI?)

For me, the best part of the revival remains Ghost Deb.  She really deservers her own show, though plotlines would probably be limited by the fact that she’s just a figment of Dexter’s imagination.  Still, Jennifer Carpenter was one of the key parts of what made the original Dexter such an entertaining series and the way that show’s final season rather cavalierly killed her off is one of the many reasons why so many people hated the original finale.  Though Ghost Deb may not be solving crimes, she’s still calling everyone on their bullshit.  It’s good to have her back, in all of her profane glory.

TV Review: Dexter: New Blood 1.3 “Smoke Signals” (dir by Sanford Bookstaver)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

It’s been a busy week, with my sister’s birthday and Thanksgiving, so it was only this morning that I finally got a chance to watch the latest episode of Dexter: New Blood.  

A lot happened in Smoke Signals.  In fact, it was probably the busiest episode of the series so far.  That’s not a complaint, of course.  If anything, this episode felt like a classic episode of the first Dexter series.  In Miami, there was always a lot going on around Dexter while Dexter tried to figure out a way to dispose of his latest victim.  The latest episode would seem to suggest that, chilly weather aside, upstate New York is not that much different from Dexter’s former home.

Here’s a quick rundown of what did happen:

First off, Lily the hitchhiker was killed by the serial killer who we all know is going to turn out to be Olsen.

Harrison is now a student at the local high school.  He stood up to group of bullies, which was cool.  But, by grabbing the bully by throat and basically strangling him while demanding that the bully leave his friends alone, Harrison confirmed my suspicion that he’s got his own Dark Passenger.

Audrey, who is kind of annoying, told Olsen to stop “fucking up the planet.”  Olsen pointed out that Audrey drives an “old gas guzzler.”  It seems kind of obvious to me that, along with being a Count Zaroff-style serial killer, Olsen is also Audrey father.

Angela continued to investigate Matt’s death and Dexter again found himself in the weird position of being the closest confidant to the people investigating a murder that he committed.

Dexter spent most of the episode trying to figure out how to get rid of Matt’s body.  It turned out to be not as easy as he thought it would be.  Eventually, after watching the Seneca people burn the body of the deer that Matt shot, it occurred to Dexter to do the same thing with Matt.

No sooner had Dexter finished stuffing Matt in the incinerator than he ran into Matt’s father, Kurt.  Kurt was totally drunk and swore that he had just had a conversation with Matt and that Matt was still alive!  I’m interested to see what the show does with the character of Kurt.  At first, I thought he’d just be another person who would eventually come too close to revealing the truth about Dexter, like Doakes from the first two seasons.  But the end of the latest episode, with Dexter driving the drunk Kurt home, suggested that their relationship could become a bit more complex.

For myself, the highlight of this episode was Ghost Deb, who spent the entire show popping up at the least opportune times and profanely taunting Dexter over his inability to get rid of Matt’s body.  Ghost Deb had a point.  Dexter is out of practice and his idea that he could somehow turn his urges on-and-off was a foolish one.  Dexter should know better.  Ghost Deb and the wood chipper was a great Dexter moment.

All in all, it was a good episode.  I do wish that Olsen was a bit less obvious in his villainy but Dexter was never exactly known for its nuanced villains.  The Trinity Killer was more the exception than the rule. That said, I’m interested to see where all of this stuff with Harrison leads.  Is Harrison a killer-in-training and, if so, how is Dexter going to deal with that?

Maybe we’ll find out tomorrow!

TV Review: Dexter: New Blood 1.2 “Storm of Fuck” (dir by Marcos Siega)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The second episode of Dexter: New Blood had a title that I’m sure Deb would have appreciated.

Indeed, any Deb-centric episode of the first series of Dexter was always guaranteed to feature a storm of profanity and one of the the things that I always liked about Dexter is that everyone on the show was always as shocked by Deb’s language as the viewer was.  Ghost Deb tends to curse a lot as well.  Of course, Ghost Deb has her reasons.  Not only is she dead but she can’t get her stupid stepbrother to listen to her advice.  Ghost Deb told Dexter not to let Harrison stay in the cabin.  She told Dexter that everyone he gets close to dies.  And yet, over the course of Storm of Fuck, Dexter not only invited Harrison to live with him but he also took Harrison along with him while he covered up the previous episode’s murder of Matt Caldwell.  (Of course, he didn’t tell Harrison what he was actually doing.  Dexter is very good at keeping his secrets.)

A few thoughts on Storm of Fuck:

First off, it’s pretty obvious that the girl in the motel is going to be used as the target in some version of The Most Dangerous Game, right?  And it’s also pretty obvious that Edward Olsen is the one behind it.  It’s in no way a big surprise because Dexter has always been full of evil, rich serial killers.  It also seems fairly obvious that Audrey is eventually going to end up getting hunted by Olsen.

Secondly, I don’t think Matt’s father (played by Clancy Brown) is a serial killer but I do think that he’s going to eventually figure out what Dexter did to his son.  He’ll be the New Blood‘s equivalent of James Doakes, the man who knows the truth but can’t get anyone to listen to him.

Third, Harrison has totally murdered someone, right?  I mean, he may not be a serial killer.  And the events of Storm of Fuck would seem to indicate that he doesn’t have anything to do with any of the recent missing persons cases.  But, obviously, he’s got some secrets.  What did he do back when he was on drugs?  Was he even on drugs or was that just something he said?  Are those drawings of people who he knows or people he killed?  When he read Dexter’s letter about “dark tendencies,” was he upset because he discovered Dexter was alive or was it because he knew that he did have those dark tendencies?  My point is that Harrison is destined to follow in his father’s bloody footsteps eventually.

As for the rest of Storm of Fuck, it was an okay episode.  It didn’t exactly move the story forward by much but it did allow us a chance to get to know all of the new characters.  To me, this episode worked best as an example of the show’s often underrated use of dark humor.  As macabre as the subject matter often is, it’s hard not to laugh at the contrast between Michael C. Hall’s deadpan voice-over and the events happening on screen.  And, in grand Dexter tradition, the entire episode featured Dexter getting one lucky break after another until, during the final few minutes, everything fell apart.  Dexter had nearly gotten everyone away from his cabin when Kurt Caldwell showed up and gave a rousing speech.  On any other show, we would have cheered a community coming together and Kurt’s speech would have been a big hero moment.

On Dexter, though, it’s just a storm of fuck.

Horror Film Review: A Nightmare on Elm Street (Samuel Bayer)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

“Hey, you guys!  The 2010 remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street is on TV!”

“Alright!  I NEVER MISS A ROONEY MARA HORROR MOVIE!”

Indeed, way back in 2010, there a lot of hype accompanying the release of the remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street.  It came out at a time when a lot of classic horror films were being rebooted for no particular reason.  Halloween got a reboot.  Friday the 13th got a reboot.  Texas Chainsaw Massacre has gotten a reboot.  So, it was just kind of expected that Nightmare on Elm Street would get a reboot, bringing the story into the modern age and making the story less problematic and blah bah blah.

And yet, for all the hype that accompanied the Nightmare on Elm Street reboot, it was pretty quickly forgotten.  If I remember correctly, it failed to live up to box office expectations and, as a result, there was never a sequel to this reboot.  Jackie Earle Haley never got a second chance to play Freddy Krueger and, to be honest, that’s probably for the best.  Haley’s a great actor who deserves better than to be typecast as the actor who played the second best version of Freddy Krueger.  No matter how good a performance Haley could have given in any of the hypothetical sequels to the Nightmare reboot, he would have been overshadowed by Robert Englund’s definitive interpretation of the character.

Today, the movie seems to be best remembered as one of the films that Rooney Mara made before she was cast in the title role of David Fincher’s rehash of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.  Mara plays the role of Nancy, the sleep-deprived teenager whose friends are all having nightmares and dying in various grotesque ways.  In Nightmare on Elm Street, Rooney Mara is even more boring than usual but then again, the same can be said of just about everyone else in the movie, with the exception of Jackie Earle Haley and Clancy Brown.  The majority of the actors just go through the motions.  It’s as if they decided that, since they were appearing in a horror movie, they didn’t really have to make any sort of effort to do anything interesting with their characters.  One need only compare the performances of Heather Langenkamp and Rooney Mara to see why the original Nightmare On Elm Street remains a classic while the remake has been forgotten.

Of course, another reason why the reboot has been forgotten is because it’s not really that scary.  The original Nightmare is still scary.  The original can still give you nightmares.  Robert Englund’s performance still holds up.  The death of Tina is still terrifying.  The scene where Nancy looks at the gray streak in her hair and says that she looks like she’s in her 20s is still funny.  Nightmare on Elm Street still holds up.  The reboot, however, falls flat in the scares department.  I think part of the problem is that the dreams are too obvious in the reboot,  In the original, the waking world would segue so effortlessly into the dream world that you were always kept off-balance.  In the remake, the dreams are too easy to spot and they’re too dependent on CGI to be convincing as a actual nightmares.

The remake does do one interesting thing.  There are several scenes in the film that seem to be designed to hint that maybe, in life, Freddy was actually innocent of the crimes for which was accused and that he was just set on fire because he was a convenient scapegoat.  That’s an intriguing idea and it certainly would have brought a whole new dimension to Freddy and his quest for revenge.  Just imagine how much of a mind-screw the film would have been if it had been revealed that Freddy had actually been framed by one of the same adults who later set him on fire.  Unfortunately, after making you think that the movie might actually do something unexpected, the film then reveals that Freddy actually was guilty and the whole story becomes a bit less interesting.  Revealing that Freddy was just a somewhat slow handyman who was wrongly accused would have brought some subversive life to this film but this reboot has no interest in being subversive.

Ignore the remake.  Watch the original.

Thunder Alley (1985, directed by J.S. Cardone)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Richie (Roger Wilson) is an Arizona farm boy who can play the guitar like a riot and who, after he joins a band called Magic, discovers that success is a hideous bitch goddess.

Thunder Alley was a Cannon production and it features all of the usual rock movie clichés.  Though Richie is reluctant to join Magic and leave his family behind, he soon emerges as the most talented member of the band and he starts to overshadow the arrogant lead singer, Skip (Leif Garrett).  Donnie (Scott McGinnis), who is Richie’s best friend in the band, gets hooked on cocaine while Richie struggles to resist groupie temptation and remain loyal to his sweet girlfriend, Beth (Jill Schoelen).  The band depends on their road manager, Weasel (Clancy Bown), to get them on stage in time and to protect them from dishonest club owners.

As predictable as it may be, Thunder Alley is one of the better films to be distributed by Cannon Films in the 80s, which is saying something when you consider that Thunder Alley doesn’t feature Michael Dudikoff, Chuck Norris, or Charles Bronson.  The thing that sets Thunder Alley apart from so many other similar films is that, when you actually see Magic perform and hear their music, you actually believe that the band could be a success.  This isn’t one of those films where everyone is feigning enthusiasm for a band that sounds terrible.  Instead, Magic actually sounds like a band that could have gone all the way in 1985.  The scenes of them going from one cheap motel to another while coming together as a band feel as authentic and real as the scenes of Skip angrily realizing that Richie has replaced him as the face of Magic.

Though he was probably cast because he was one of the stars of Porky’s, Roger Wilson was also an actual musician and he’s credible whenever he’s performing on stage.  The same can be said of former teen pop idol Leif Garrett, who plays an actual rock and roller in Thunder Alley and who is surprisingly convincing in the role.  Sporting an impressive beard, Clancy Brown is the ideal road manager while Jill Schoelen brings a lot of life to her small role as Richie’s loyal girlfriend.

For a film that is all about sex, drugs, and rock and roll, Thunder Alley has an innocent side.  Even after he becomes a star and he’s got groupies going crazy every time he steps up to a microphone, Richie’s main concern is making sure that he gets home in time to help his father with the harvest.  Thunder Alley not only asks how far you would go to be a star but also suggests that there’s nothing wrong with choosing, instead, to be a loyal boyfriend or a good son.  Thunder Alley brings it own earnest approach to all of the usual rock and roll clichés and suggests that, with the right combination of talent and hard work, you can have it all, the farm and the stage.

Of course, it helps if you’ve got Clancy Brown looking out for you.

 

Horror on the Lens: Cast a Deadly Spell (dir by Martin Campbell)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

For today’s horror on the lens, we have a real treat!

Produced for HBO in 1991, Cast a Deadly Spell takes place in an alternate 1948, where magic is used regularly and zombies are used as slave labor but the streets of Los Angeles are just as mean as they’ve ever been.  Fred Ward gives a fantastic performance as Harry Phillip Lovecraft, a hard-boiled P.I. who refuses to use magic on general principle.  Lovecraft, however, may have no choice when he finds himself embroiled in a case involving a magic book, Julianne Moore, and Clancy Brown!

Enjoy!

(If you want to know more about the film, check out this review that I wrote for Horror Critic.)

A Movie A Day #292: The Bride (1985, directed by Franc Roddam)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

The Bride opens where most films about Frankenstein and his monster end.

The Baron (played by fucking Sting, of all people) has agreed to create a bride for his creation, who in this movie is named Viktor and played by Clancy Brown.  Jennifer Beals plays the Bride, who is named Eva.  Eva looks like a normal, beautiful wielder-turned-dancer so when she first sees Viktor, she screams.  Viktor gets upset and starts to trash the laboratory.  “Don’t be impertinent!’ snaps the Baron’s assistant (Quentin Crisp).  A fire breaks out.  Quentin Crisp dies and so does another assistant played by Timothy Spall.  The monster escapes.  The Baron takes Eva into his household.  The Baron is obsessed with controlling Eva, who wants her independence and who has fallen in love with Cary Elwes.  When Eva sees a cat, she screams.  “You never told me about cats,” she tells the Baron, “I thought it was a tiny lion!”

The rest of the movie is a bewildering collection of cameos from respected thespians forced to recite some of the worst dialogue in film history.  Viktor befriends Rinaldo the dwarf (David Rappaport), who tells Viktor about how much he dreams of one day seeing Venice.  After Rinaldo is murdered by Alexei Sayle, Viktor swears that he will go to Venice and he will take Eva with him.

(Timothy Spall,  Quentin Crisp, and Alexei Sayle are not the only British performers to be strangely miscast in The Bride.  Keep an eye out for Phil Daniels, Ken Campbell, and Tony Haygarth, all wasted in small roles.)

The Bride attempts to put a revisionist, feminist spin on the story of Frankenstein but it ultimately just looks like a two hour Duran Duran video, with a guest vocals provided by Sting.  The scenes with Clancy Brown and David Rappaport work but otherwise, every important role is miscast.  Jennifer Beals is monotonous as the Bride and Sting never comes close to suggesting that he is capable of the type of mad genius that would be necessary to create life.  When it comes to the Bride of Frankenstein, stick with the original.

One final note: Both Sting and Phil Daniels also appeared in a much better film from Franc Roddam, Quadrophenia.  I recommend seeing Quadrophenia almost as much as I recommend forgetting about The Bride.

Playing Catch-Up With The Films of 2016: Warcraft (dir by Duncan Jones)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Last night, my cousin and I watched Warcraft, which is a film that has been called “the worst of 2016” by several critics.

Personally, I don’t think it’s the worst film of 2016.  It didn’t make me physically ill, like Hardcore Henry did.  My cousin — who, unlike me, has actually played all of the Warcraft games and therefore came into the film already knowing who and what everything was — says that he enjoyed it.  On the basis of both Moon and The Source Code, I think Duncan Jones is a genius who will eventually emerge as one of the most important directors working right now.  Dominic Cooper is in Warcraft and so is Ben Foster.  They’re both fairly unrecognizable (thought not as unrecognizable as Clancy Brown!) but they’re also two excellent actors and I’m always happy to see them listed in the credits.  Visually, the film was well-designed though it was impossible for me not to think about the Make Love, Not Warcraft episode of South Park.

But I have to say that no film has ever left as totally confused as Warcraft.  I got that the film was about a war between Orcs and humans.  And I appreciated the fact that the film attempted to give all of the Orcs their own individual personalities and culture.   If I wanted to, I could probably spend a few 100 words talking about how the war in Warcraft can serve as a metaphor for every war currently being fought in the real world.

But seriously, I spent nearly the entire film trying to keep straight who was who.  The cast was huge and the dialogue was full of people and creatures talking about magic and honor and history and tradition and sacrifice and why so-and-so had to do this to such-and-such because of something that happened to someone else centuries ago and it made my head hurt trying to keep up with it all.  I eventually gave up.  My cousin was enjoying the film and, in the end, that’s all that mattered.

Plus, there was a cute little orc baby!  I liked him and his story reminded me of the story of Moses floating away in that basket.

Anyway, Warcraft was slaughtered by critics and, because it cost a ton of money to make, it didn’t make any money back.  So, the film probably won’t get the sequel that the ending was obviously designed to set up.  However, I get the feeling that, next year, Warcraft will be a popular film to live tweet whenever it shows up on SyFy.

It may have been the most incoherent film of 2016 but it wasn’t necessarily the worst.