Warcraft (2016)

  This was the Christy pick for October.  Two more and I will be caught up until 2017.

This is going to involve some discussion about the end of the film and various "reveals" so go ahead and consider this your spoiler warning if you choose to watch this, which I don't recommend.

The orcs' world is dying and they need a new home.  Their resident sorcerer, Gul'dan (Daniel Wu), has created a portal for them to enter another world inhabited by humans using an evil magic called the Fell.  A disgraced human wizard apprentice (Ben Schnetzar) is the first to figure it out and he runs and tells Lothar (Travis Fimmel) who is Somebody.  (I don't actually know what his position is supposed to be but he gets things done and his sister (Ruth Negga) is the wife of the king (Dominic Cooper) so he has to be somebody important.)  Anyway, Lothar gets the green light to involve the Guardian (Ben Foster), the magical keeper of the realm and they go off to determine what is going on with the orcs.  Meanwhile, orc war band leader Durotan (Toby Kebbell) is starting to think that Gul'dan might not exactly been on the up-and-up.  He uses captured half-orc Garona (Paula Patton) to pass a message that he'd totally be willing to meet with the enemy if they'll help him kill Gul'dan.

Okay.  Here's where I lost my cherubic good nature.

Durotan's meeting with the humans turns out to be a trap for both of them.  He is captured and challenges Gul'dan to a one-on-one fight in order to show his people what kind of asshole they are following.  Gul'dan uses the Fell to suck the life out of Durotan, which disgusts the orcs, but changes nothing.  Stupidly pointless death #1.

Durotan's whole tribe was to be killed but his mate (Anna Galvan) got away with their infant son.  She puts the bassinet in the river...in an alien world...where they are a non-native species with not even remotely close contemporaries...and turns to fight one of the pursuers unarmed.  Stupidly pointless death #2.

The king's men are hopelessly outnumbered and outclassed as fighters without Lothar.  The king comes up with a last ditch effort after remembering an obscure cultural bit about orcs:  status is conferred through the killing of people of rank.  He tells Garona that she should kill him and gain enough status to be someone of note to the orcs so she can stop the war.  Stupidly pointless death #3.

I understand that this is based off the absurdly popular video game World of Warcraft, gameplay of which revolves around unceasing war between humans and orcs.  For most people, I get that the game is fun, collaborative, and recreational.  It's just pixels.  I am not one of those people who believe that video games encourage real life violence.  People have always been violent.

However.  This movie is not glorifying a game.  This movie is glorifying war.  War based on a fundamental miscommunication that possibly could have been fixed diplomatically.  No one even tried.  Even the meeting between Durotan and the king was less "hey, my people are refugees who need a home" and more "let's kill the wizard."  Was there not a single person on the entire planet who thought "maybe we can negotiate"?  And the king's dumbass decision to have the one possible go-between --someone literally of both worlds-- stab him with a personalized dagger all but ensured that there would be no attempts at reconciliation because all the humans are going to assume she's a traitor who can't be trusted.  Which they do.  So the king has plunged his country and all his allies into unceasing conflict where thousands will die and millions will suffer against an enemy that literally can't retreat.  Boy, that sure does sound like fun.

TL;DR: This is the exact same plot as Star Trek VI, except without the Shakespeare and happy ending.