Yes, the moment has finally come! Our favorite Halo series has made a movie of the latest release: Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn. It was created by Microsoft and was released the 21st of November, 2012. The movie itself is about 1.5 hours long and is a combination of single-episode releases leading up to the release of the game in November.
The movie starts off before the actual storyline in the Halo 4 game with a close up of the Captain of Infinity (a UNSC space ship) Thomas Lansky. He is reflecting upon his past where the real movie actually begins. We meet the young Thomas Lansky: a freshman cadet in the Corbulo Academy, a training academy for children of UNSC officers currently active in the war against the Covenant. We follow him through his experience at the academy, everything from training drills to his personal time spent in his room reflecting on his relationship with his dead brother, an ODST.
The cadets are taken for a surprise when Covenant forces attack the academy, our five main characters must fight for their lives after they discover that they are the last people alive on the planet.
The graphics were some of the best I would expect from a movie based off of a video game franchise, and it definitely lived up to the newly released Halo 4 game. The Covenant aliens and weapons that were used were amazingly detailed and acted just like the characters from the beloved game series. Of course, who could forget our favorite Master Chief John 117. Every scene with Master Chief was expertly designed and choreographed to mirror the player’s actions in the game to how he behaved in the movie, including obvious experience with battling enemies such as a Hunter or an Elite, but, much to the viewers’ dismay, most action scenes were too dark on screen to make out what exactly was happening. Yes, we understand the story takes place at night, but for goodness sake can we get a flashlight or something? We’d actually like to see the action, not just hear it.
The one major let-down of Forward Unto Dawn would have to be the plot line. The movie in it’s entirety was very drawn out and boring compared to the usual action and suspense brought on by the game, there was too much focus on Thomas Lansky’s everyday life in the academy and not much was explained about what point they were at in the war, not a single mention of the Halo Rings, or any of the war heroes such as Master Chief or Sgt. Johnson.
All in all the movie is something nice to watch on YouTube or over at a friend’s house, but not a movie to be looking forward to buying.