After Neill Blomkamp’s motion picture adaptation of Halo was cancelled I feared we would
never get to see the adventures of Master Chief on the big screen. Deemed too
expensive to make during a period of diminishing box office returns, studios
were fearful of the mammoth production regardless of the knowledge that its
guaranteed fan base would turn out in droves to see it. Fans were pretty
outraged when it was cancelled and rightfully so, especially after seeing how
amazing the film Blomkamp made in that project’s wake, District 9, turned out.
So jump ahead a few years and the imminent release of the
highly anticipated Halo 4 is upon
Xbox 360 owners everywhere. The series’ original creators, Bungie, gave up the
development duties on any installments after Halo: Reach, so Microsoft hired 343 Studios to take over. With a
new studio at the reigns, many fans feared the worst. So how else could you get
back in their good graces and build a massive amount of excitement for their
game? You make a movie.
Basically Halo 4:
Forward Unto Dawn serves as a prequel to the entire series and is not in
any way related to the storyline of Halo
4. It follows a group of young adult cadets at the Corbulo Academy of
Military Science who are being trained for combat by the United Nations Space
Command to stop a civilian insurgency. Cadet Thomas Lasky (Tom Green) is having
trouble fitting in due to high expectations brought on by the memory of his
military family’s pedigree, and only seems to get along with fellow cadet
Chyler Silva (Anna Popplewell). As a romantic relationship begins to grow
between them the Academy is attacked by an alien force and Lasky and his squad
must fight for their lives to survive. Help arrives in the form of an armored super
soldier known only as Master Chief (Daniel Cudmore).
The fact that this was made primarily as a commercial to
advertise Halo 4 and was broken up into 5 parts and distributed online (one
episode was released each week leading up to the release of the game on the
website halowaypoint.com) doesn’t detract from the fact that this is a quality
production. Made for only $10m, there is a polish to this project that some of
the large budgeted Hollywood films can only dream about
possessing. I credit director Stewart Hendler and writers Aaron & Todd Helbing
for making something that is not only visually exciting and action-packed, but
gives us a look at the beginnings of the Covenant War through the eyes of
all-new characters that are interesting and relatable.
Every one of the young actors turns in a nice performance,
especially Tom Green and Anna Popplewell. Popplewell, who most will recognize
from The Chronicles of Narnia films,
gives a very down-to-Earth feel to her character of Chyler that makes her
immediately appealing. Tom Green, while starting off a little whiny and
annoying, comes into his own after the first 20 minutes and becomes the
emotional center that grounds the film. When the shit hits the fan at the 40
minute mark they also prove, along with their co-stars, that they are adept at
handling action scenes as well.
The special effects have to be mentioned not because they
are fantastic, but because this film rarely relies on CGI
unless absolutely necessary. Sure during the invasion scene there are aliens
running about and strafing runs by starships, but the script smartly stays
focused on the main characters and rarely strays form them. Even when there are
insane things going on around them the camera remains with them as they flee
for their lives or prepare to mount an offensive. The film becomes intensely
immersive due to this approach and I again have to give credit to the
filmmakers for making yet another intelligent choice.
And then there’s the one person all Halo fans have been clamoring to see realized on film for a decade--
Master Chief. Daniel Cudmore (Colossus in the X-Men films) has the gargantuan task of playing this video game
icon here, and even though we never see his face he gives Master Chief a lot of
personality through his body language. Steve Downes provides the voice for the
character as he has for every game, and it was awesome to hear him in a
live-action Halo production.
While the story takes a while to get to the action scenes I
will admit that it’s never boring. The characters are interesting and for a
fan it was incredibly cool to finally get a bit of backstory on the beginnings
of the war (especially for someone who never read any of the expansion novels).
The action, however, is kick ass. We get to see Brutes annihilating waves of
Cadets while tearing apart the Academy, a tense Warthog chase through a forest
and to cap it all off we are treated to Master Chief taking on a Hunter with
only a single grenade as a weapon. If you have been waiting to see a live
action Master Chief whooping ass and taking names you are in for a treat.
I can imagine that my main beef is the same one all Halo
fans share, and that would be that I wanted to see more of Master Chief. He
shows up nearly an hour into the film and while he does a lot of cool stuff
(seeing him run across that exterior walkway while dual-wielding put a smile on
my face) I still wanted more than what we were given. He’s the focal point of
the games and I can understand that leaving him out of the majority of the
storyline was an intentional choice by the filmmakers to keep the budget low
and give a nice build-up to his arrival later on, but the fact remains that
every fan associates Halo with Master
Chief. But I shouldn’t complain because I’m just happy that we even got a Halo film at all.
For a 90-minute webseries meant to serve as a glorified
commercial, Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn ended up being all I ever wanted in a
live action Halo film and more. It has everything you could ever want: drama,
action and well defined characters played by some talented young actors all
wrapped up in a sweet Halo bow.
Now imagine this… if something this good was made for only
$10m, what would a feature film made for $100m look like?
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