Orc-hestral Maneuvers in the Dark [Review: Orcs]

Things I learned from Orcs (2011)

• The job of Park Ranger is one of the most dangerous professions on Earth.

• This job mainly involves testing the strength of drugs confiscated from park visitors. Repeatedly.
• Orcs are allergic to bright light – but only at night. Sunlight is apparently OK.
• Orcs are phenomenally accurate archers – but only during the day.
• Orcs hate golfers and canoeists and campers. Especially golfers - so maybe they’re not all bad.
• Every US National Park has a locked arsenal containing all manner of firearms from shotguns to Uzis.

Let’s face it. Orcs are basically armoured, fast zombies and this is basically a zombie film but about orcs – it even climaxes in a shotgun siege.

I know the job of policing queues can get nasty quickly, and of course some people might, quite understandably, become a little irrational when informed that the Balancing Rock at Balancing Rock National Park has been removed for health and safety reasons. However this National Park does seem slightly oversupplied in the weaponry department – and have they considered the possibility of bears breaking in and stealing said weaponry? To be fair, this existential drama is set in the US where the right to arm bears is enshrined in Constitution.

The Orcs are played gleefully by an army of small actors – dwarves? children? Hobbits? Difficult to tell with all the armour and prosthetics. Cynical bad boy ranger Cal (Adam Johnson) and by-the-book rookie Hobie (Maclain Nelson) have real onscreen Yogi and Boo Boo chemistry between them, making a gooseberry of eco-warrior Katie (Rennie Grames).

This movie is a lot of fun but not quite the unofficial Lord Of The Rings spin-off it would like to be, and frankly, there’s not nearly enough face-eating.