The best thing about Orcs! are the production values, which in the photography, costumes and scenery are very good. The photography has fluidity and skill, that way it allows us to enjoy the beautiful scenery more. The costumes are reasonably attractive too, colourful and neither over-the-top or ugly. The music does have some excitement that is not there in the rest of the movie, there are some beautiful parts and it doesn't play too much of a dirge. However, the special effects are slapdash at best, they are weirdly proportioned and there is nothing smooth in their movements. The orcs are no better, design-wise they fare even worse, the Chamber of Horrors actors in Madame Tussauds' are far more believably made up, and they are very amateurishly acted. In fact the acting is not very good in Orcs! There are a couple of mild bright spots, but a lot of it screams of inexperience and I found myself constantly annoyed by the characters, especially Cal who's annoyingly acted by Adam Johnson. Orcs! falls down badly in the script and story departments. There is a lot of "humour" in the movie, and the bad news is that very little of it works and there really needed to be much less of it. Instead of witty, it just felt cheesy and immature, made worse by the actors' forced dialogue delivery. Aside from the humour, the rest of the script is very stilted and confused. The story is a mess and never seems to find the right tone, it tries to be quirky, it tries to be suspenseful and it tries to be scary and it succeeds at neither. The orcs are nowhere near threatening enough and have no presence really, while the movie is too dull and predictable to be suspenseful and the action is sluggishly edited, is choreographed with no excitement, tension or fun whatsoever and is performed with no involvement. In conclusion, the production values(outside of the effects and the look of the orcs) are decent but the rest of the movie is a big misfire. 3/10 Bethany Cox
