Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn (2012)

To me, this movie is perfection.

Highly Overrated But Still Good

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

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.

Most of the action in this 2012 miniseries takes place in a futuristic military academy. The protagonists are trained to be good soldiers. Green and Popplewell give both decent performances, Zurer's part is too small to make an impact and Brewster proves she is not a good actress. The whole thing runs for 90 minutes and you can either watch it as a five-part miniseries or as an entire movie. The action is very cliché and has been done so many times. The male protagonist is the brother of a successful former soldier and fails to be as good as his brother. But only initially of course, as it is always in these films. When the going gets tough, i.e. humanity is attacked and lots of explosions happen, he proves to be as good (probably better) than his legendary brother. Near the end, everybody except our group of heroes is killed. Also done many times. I am not the greatest science fiction fan, but this movie lacked some originality to me. Or maybe you have to have played the games to really appreciate it. Which I have not, but also which this film could not inspire me to do. The film's director is not too known, but the writer has worked on "Spartacus: Blood and Sand" and, more recently, the very much hyped new television series "The Flash". I assume he has improved over the last couple years as "Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn" is a mostly forgettable effort. Not recommended.

First of all, I have virtually no experience playing the Halo games, and thus only a very casual acquaintance with their universe and story line. I like science fiction, though, and was interested in something with action, so I gave Halo 4 a spin, not expecting too terribly much. As at least one other reviewer has written, ALL CAPS WOW!This film is simply astounding in the quality of its production values, cast, writing, cinematography and musical score. I am completely blow away. I have not seen a science fiction/action film this arresting in a long time. Just the visual aspect of it is incredibly beautiful. From what I understand -- I could be wrong -- this was not released in theaters, but I would absolutely love to see something like this on a big screen.Does it start out slowly? I suppose so, but I am a big fan of taking time to develop characters, establish themes and set the stage. Once the action hits, it is intense, and that is only helped by the build up to it. I was on the edge of my seat, lost track of time, and kept thinking to myself, How can this be so good? A little bit of Starship Troopers without the satire/gore, a little bit of Aliens w/out the 80s rough edges, a little bit of Ender's Game with a more hands-on approach, but with a specific modern style all its own. Halo 4 may be just an origin story on a small scale, but what a ride! Highly recommended if you enjoy being transported and thrilled.

Somehow I stumbled upon this movie browsing through my Netflix queue and was glad I watched it. I'm hopeful they put out more movies like this. Its the first movie that I can actually say I have enjoyed even though its based of a video game, normally they try giving movies a very video game like first person shooter feel which really takes away from the story. This was totally not the case. The entire Halo world has been fascinating from the beginning and hopefully more content gets put out for it (comic books, games, etc.). Just like the video games the story takes the front seat and then delivers with good effects , cinematography, and action as a way to propel it they way good stories should be done always. Hurray for Bungie on this epic franchise.