I will say the CGI for the Hunter worms was well done but I think it's strange they chose to use that bit of Halo lore versus the Flood since that would have been more appropriate for the implacable alien enemy the movie seems to want the worms to be. Which is good because I really don't much care for the majority. It's weird two of the most memorable performances are from a pair of Indian colonist smugglers who show some of the few cases of genuine emotion from the cast. Christina Chong's Mace is also endearing but doesn't get much of a chance to shine. Steven Waddington and Mike Cotter give the only really memorable performances with the former channeling Sean Bean's Sharpe while the latter struggles to find some depth to a two-dimensional character. A few of these scenes are entertaining like when a grieving father leaves one of his rivals to die but most of them are pretty tame. The movie had one interesting idea in, "What will people do in a survival situation where they need each other but also must eventually turn on each other." Unfortunately, everyone turns on everyone else with very little prompting. The setting is underdeveloped but a good job. The movie is full of plot holes from beginning to end like the fact they know for a fact the mystery element is found only one place in the universe, they need to go down to the planet to deposit a nuke on it versus flying over it to drop it, that there's only two spots open on the evacuation craft despite the fact the craft had brought a horse (seriously), and other little tidbits which get routinely lost in the shuffle. To distill as much of Halo's expansive universe down to the bare minimum, they, essentially, just make it a generic sci-fi universe with some Halo trappings. There's a time limit with the fact they have to get off the planet before sunrise or they'll all be toasted but some rather superhuman folk fighting to keep them alive. The movie is all about a group of misfits in a survival situation turning on one another with a bunch of CGI monsters (in this case: Hunter worms) coming after them. The Elite section is one of the best parts of the movie. So what did I think? To be honest, I liked this movie better when it was called Pitch Black. Tensions almost immediately rise between the two groups which threaten to explode when they're marooned on the Halo shard with monsters pursuing them as well as a ship that will only carry a few of them to safety. Researching the toxic substance, they find out comes from a ruined fragment of the Halo ring destroyed by Master Chief in Combat Evolved, Locke's team is forced to join a group of Sedran soldiers on a joint mission to destroy the toxic substance. Hundreds of humans on the planet Sedra are killed as a result, including the daughter of the planet's military commander Randall Aiken (Steven Waddington). Discovering a smuggling ring run by aliens, the ONI agents chase the recipient of a mysterious package only to fail in stopping its opening. The Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) sends agent Jameson Locke and his team to look for signs the Covenant has violating their part of the agreement. The premise is, after the events of Halo 3, Earth has a shaky treaty with the Covenant. Mike Cotter is one of the movie's few bright spots. The fact it would star Jessica Jones Mike Cotter as Agent Jameson Locke. Still, I was intrigued by the prospect of another film set in the Halo universe. Personally, I think the best solution would be to do an animated or CGI movie. Halo: Nightfall is another attempt at doing a Halo movie without having the budget to do it. Forward Unto Dawn was an excellent movie but somewhat overwrought with its attempts to tell a deep as well as engaging story about Halo. For example, their original attempt with director Neil Blomkamp fell through with much of the props intended for it used, instead, for District Nine. The good folk at Microsoft have tried numerous times to create a Halo movie but their attempts have been a decidedly mixed bag.
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