Name : Tom Russo / Alias : Boston Globe
The fear is that Jones's storytelling smarts and aesthetic resourcefulness could wind up sacrificed to the chaos and overblown approach of a generic would-be blockbuster. Unfortunately, fear wins out.

Name : Colin Covert / Alias : Minneapolis Star Tribune
"Warcraft" is presented as the opening chapter in a franchise, but already I feel it's time to move on. We're done here.

Name : Kerry Lengel / Alias : Arizona Republic
It aims to match the mythic gravitas of "The Lord of the Rings" - even throwing in a nod to the Book of Exodus for good measure - and the results fall paint-by-numbers flat.

Name : Amy Nicholson / Alias : MTV
Duncan Jones puts in strange, fresh beats that, combined, do the impossible. They make this standard, shopworn, CG-plated epic feel like its own monster.

Name : Soren Anderson / Alias : Seattle Times
Paula Patton, playing a half-orc, half-human female warrior, is the most sympathetic character and actually gives something approaching a fully fledged performance, but for the rest of it . ugliness as far as the eye can see.

Name : Alison Willmore / Alias : BuzzFeed News
Warcraft isn't decent. It isn't awful, either, though that would honestly be preferable.

Name : Bill Zwecker / Alias : Chicago Sun-Times
While there are some acceptable action sequences, it's the screenplay - complicated by some less than inspired performances - that dooms Warcraft at every point along the way.

Name : Tirdad Derakhshani / Alias : Philadelphia Inquirer
Just because you can come up with names such as Azeroth, Durotan, Orgrim, and Grommash Hellscream doesn't mean you're J.R.R. Tolkien, people.

Name : Geoff Berkshire / Alias : Variety
The final product brings to mind those animated advertisements for iPhone app games.

Name : Rene Rodriguez / Alias : Miami Herald
Director Duncan Jones has devoted so much attention to the technical aspects of the film - some of the orcs sport bling and piercings on their tusks - that he didn't notice how badly his human cast was flailing.

Name : James Berardinelli / Alias : ReelViews
Large scale battles and magical pyrotechnics are nice supplements but the absence of well-formed characters and a meaningful narrative render such pretty things moot.

Name : Sandy Cohen / Alias : Associated Press
There's just no way to become as invested during a two-hour movie as a gamer who's spent years, maybe even decades, immersed in the rituals and traditions of the worlds of Warcraft.

Name : Kate Taylor / Alias : Globe and Mail
The characters are one-dimensional, but this is fantasy fiction not domestic drama.

Name : J. R. Jones / Alias : Chicago Reader
A lot of sentimental hogwash about fathers and sons heading off to war.

Name : Brian Truitt / Alias : USA Today
No need to have ever played a video game to enjoy Warcraft, though a healthy affection for swashbuckling action and throwback fantasy probably helps.

Name : Ethan Sacks / Alias : New York Daily News
This is not "Lord of the Rings." It's barely "Dungeons & Dragons."

Name : Peter Howell / Alias : Toronto Star
Ultimately the movie seems more focused on setting up sequels than exploring the abundant source material.

Name : Peter Hartlaub / Alias : San Francisco Chronicle
If "Lord of the Rings" and "Battlefield Earth" had a baby, it would look like the plot of "Warcraft."

Name : Stephanie Zacharek / Alias : TIME Magazine
Almost worth watching, if you still find yourself at loose ends after you've given the dog a bath, organized 10 years' worth of tax returns and completely moth-proofed your closet.

Name : A.A. Dowd / Alias : AV Club
Rarely is so much time, money, and cutting-edge technology expended on a spectacle so devoid of wonder.

Name : Sheri Linden / Alias : Hollywood Reporter
Dramatically and technically, Warcraft gives the concept of "hybrid" new punch.

Name : Anthony Lane / Alias : New Yorker
Crowded and scattershot.

Name : Adam Graham / Alias : Detroit News
Sometimes video games are best left as video games.

Name : Justin Chang / Alias : Los Angeles Times
Missteps and all, the movie pulses with a true believer's conviction.

Name : Christy Lemire / Alias : RogerEbert.com
Easily a contender for the worst movie of the year.

Name : David Sims / Alias : The Atlantic
This is a film that requires an instruction manual going in-or perhaps years of training alongside solemn mages-simply to possess the superhuman endurance needed to enjoy it.

Name : Manohla Dargis / Alias : New York Times
Jones . against the odds, has mined a watchable movie out of an entertainment franchise that started with a video game and now includes novels, comics and assorted schlock (toys, costumes, a mah-jongg set).

Name : Peter Travers / Alias : Rolling Stone
Director Duncan Jones will live to fight another day. But you leave the mostly worthless Warcraft with just two words ringing in your ear: Game over.

Name : Alan Scherstuhl / Alias : Village Voice
Warcraft is the most wearying kind of bad movie, a dull and sad one that's less engaging a watch than just seeing the studio's millions run bill by bill through a shredder for two hours.

Name : Will Leitch / Alias : The New Republic
Warcraft is a language you don't speak, a code you can't crack, a party you weren't invited to.

Name : Stephanie Merry / Alias : Washington Post
Here's hoping the next chapter languishes in development hell forever.

Name : Kyle Smith / Alias : New York Post
Jones . is trying to deliver something like "The Lord of the Rings" minus the boring bits, but without the boring bits what you have is Itchy and Scratchy with maces.

Name : Chris Nashawaty / Alias : Entertainment Weekly
Sitting through Warcraft is like being bludgeoned on the head with a Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual for 100 minutes. The big hardcover one.

Name : Tom Huddleston / Alias : Time Out
Like its ten-foot anti-heroes, 'Warcraft' is noisy, lumbering and not terribly bright.

Name : Stephen Whitty / Alias : Newark Star-Ledger
Jones still has an eye. But the movie is so overwhelmingly digitalized that most of it looks like a cartoon. Even when living, breathing actors are on screen, they feel computer generated.

Name : Britton Peele / Alias : Dallas Morning News
Little more than a dumb action blockbuster that has a bit of style but little substance.

Name : Alonso Duralde / Alias : TheWrap
Imagine Battlefield Earth without the verve, or the unintentional comedy.

Name : Steve Tilley / Alias : Toronto Sun
The story strives for a complexity that gets undermined again and again by cliche-riddled dialogue, pacing problems and performances that sometimes feel like they came out of a high school adaptation of The Lord of the Rings.

Name : Matthew Lickona / Alias : San Diego Reader
There are plenty of flaws - an overabundance of storylines chief among them, followed by the occasional slip into silly action and/or overdone effects - but what fun to discover some virtues to set against them.

Name : Eric Kohn / Alias : indieWIRE
This is a quiet little masterpiece of images, each one rich with meaning, that collectively speak to a universal process.

Name : Jordan Mintzer / Alias : Hollywood Reporter
Like The Red Turtle's shipwrecked protagonist, you have to simply stop fighting the current and go with the flow.

Name : Peter Debruge / Alias : Variety
A fable so simple, so pure, it feels as if it has existed for hundreds of years, like a brilliant shard of sea glass rendered smooth and elegant through generations of retelling.