Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn (2012)

Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

A very feeble attempt at affirmatie action

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies

Granted, I have never played the "Halo" games, because those types of games never really appealed to me, but I was, of course, familiar with the universe. I mean, it is "Halo" after all, kind of hard to miss out entirely on that.I had not heard anything about this 2012 movie prior to finding it on Netflix, I believe it was, and then sitting down to watch it. I must admit that I did have some expectations to the movie. It is "Halo" after all.The movie started out alright, but very quickly lost its momentum and its appeal. And by the 25 minutes marker, I was ready to give up out of a sheer lack of interest. The movie had nothing to offer me, and I was more than bored with the storyline (or shall I say, lack thereof). But I decided to keep with it and give the movie a chance to win me over.When I hit the 36 minute marker, I gave up. This movie was just pointless and offered nothing in terms of a proper storyline or appeal in any way to me. The characters were flat and irrelevant, and basically were generic and cliché all the way, and that made me have zero interest in the characters. And the storyline just was too shallow and progressed literally nowhere in the 36 minutes that I endured of this ordeal of a movie.I was expecting quite a bit more than what was delivered on the screen, and I was sorely disappointed with what I suffered through in the 36 minutes that I endured. I have absolutely no intention of ever returning to watch the rest of the movie, because there was nothing for me to enjoy here.

I like my science fiction films and books, especially military science fiction. I was looking forward to what promised to be a good film about a future military, with a focus on tactics and hardware, as well as a good story and character development. I was so disappointed. This was 60% dull clichés and 35% incoherent gibberish, with about 5% of promise. I still have no idea what the wobble about space debris at the start and end of the film was about, other than that one of the ship's there for some reason gave the film its title, and that the guy at the end was, through the clumsy reference to the blister scars, the protagonist of the main part of the film. The first hour of the film pulled out every cliché it could about young people in a military academy - expectations of parents, rebellion against Da Man, tough tomboy, suppressed romance, yadda yadda yadda. Once the bad guys and big strong good guys turn up, it turns from dull to incomprehensible, with awful dialogue and poor acting ("call me ... master chief" - cringe). And having got through the first big action scene - the cliché of having to get through hostile territory to. The pickup point - and introduced the new badly CGId big strong good guys, it just stopped. Truly awful.

Halo 4; Forward Unto Dawn continues the trend every movie that has been adapted from a game has set; it fails incredibly. The director; Stewart Hendler, has shown that he has brought his unique type of direction to this movie, and in doing so, it has a poor structure, and incredibly poor acting. The chemistry between Thom Green and Anna Popplewell is unbelievable, and at times their dialogue is obviously scripted. The excitement of seeing the Chief himself was not enough to carry this movie that failed on most fronts. For a viewer watching this as a stand alone film, it is disappointing and lacklustre, however, if you're an avid Halo player, then maybe there is enough nostalgia and references to keep the tedious story afloat.

The year is 2526. Thomas Lasky (Tom Green) struggles in training at the Corbulo Academy of Military Science on the planet Cirnicus-IV. He is a disappointment considering his illustrious military family. His only friend is fellow cadet Chyler Silva (Anna Popplewell). Humanity has ventured out to colonize other worlds. The big threat is expected to be colony insurrectionists. Then the planet is invaded by an alien army, the Covenant, which is kept secret from everybody except the higher ups.As a web mini-series, there is some good work with impressive F/X for the price. As a TV show, this is better than most Syfy channel work. It's more of an interesting road map of what a Halo TV show or movie could be. Tom Green is a relative newcomer. I've only seen him in a TV show called Camp. It's a different character with a completely different hair cut. Anna Popplewell is probably the only recognizable name and face. She does the only competent acting on the show. In the end, this is not about the acting or even the story. This is mostly a dry run to get the look, the style and the effects correct for something bigger later on. At least, that's the big hope for fans. Looking at what they have, I hope they dial back the shaky cam work. I also hope that they lose the slow-mo Michael Bay wannabe. This seems to be going for Battlestar Galactica and I think that's a good move. If they make a theatrical war movie, it's going to need more money, a lot more money. However I think there is a great horror movie available for a lot less cash.