Halo 4 : Aube de l'espérance

Well-done story about cadets in the Halo-world military training facility. Would be better if people knew the Cortana and Master Chief story. As it is, slightly weak ending but fascinating storyline and good acting, filming and directing.

Let's bear in mind that this came out several years before Netflix rudely awakened the slumbering movie industry with their 2017 Wil Smith project, "Bright".

-Which critics completely panned, not because it was bad, (it was a solid 7/10 movie which regular folks enjoyed), but because it bucked the system and made all the little Authoritarian reviewers feel threatened. (You can't get free passes and pats on the head if the regular Hollywood machine's distribution network gets bypassed and Netflix ignores you and doesn't send you review copies, and has the audacity to still rake in tens of millions of viewers without your shillmanship).

I love that! Hollyweird needs to undergo a serious purge at every level.

Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn was essentially a grab bag item, like a coffee mug or tee shirt, swag to be released along with the latest episode in their flagship game franchise. I rolled my eyes when a gamer friend of mine insisted that I watch his DVD copy, "No, it's really good!"

Come on. It's a marketing product. An advert. How good can it possibly be?

So I strapped in, ready for a dose of tacky cheese...

And was blown away.

Wow! They hired real movie pros, actors, production teams. And script writers! It was better than most sci-fi TV shows.

I came to the end asking, "Is there more?"

That was the day I realized that just because Hollywood didn't spit it out doesn't mean it can't be good!

This is good stuff!

OK... for a person who has never played the game and didn't have a clue as to what to expect other than a shoot em up against aliens, this is decent watching. It starts off kinda slow building up the characters then gets going pretty well with everything hits the fan. Lots of action for the final part of the movie and keeps you interested. I am now going to watch the next installment Nightfall... and so far so good with that one, only 15 minutes into it.

If you are into fighting and space aliens, this is worth a watch. Its no academy award anything, its just 1:41 of 'video game' movie action.

I'm aware enough of the Halo Universe to pick up on most of the references in the series, but beyond the fact that it provides an excellent live action piece of an excellent game series, it's simply a great piece of storytelling all it's own.

The people reviewing this saying it's 'boring for the first 55 minutes' or 'cheap and generic' must be expecting heavy action and constant explosions. And those people will never be satisfied with character pieces, which this most certainly relies heavily upon.

The arc of the characters is phenomenal, and their trepidations about becoming soldiers are real and extremely pertinent to the teens of today.

This series manages to fulfill Halo fans expectations of a glimpse into the universe they love, as well as provide new fans with relatable, intensely realistic characters that allow new viewers to experience this universe for themselves, along with the characters.

Definitely worth a watch. That is unless you're looking for non-stop action, explosions and witty one liners said by Master Chief. At which point, don't bother, because this is so much more than that.

As a fan of all things sci-fi, I was really eager to see what a live- action representation of the hallowed game would look like. After seeing this, I am motivated to buy my first ever Halo game and start playing. I would have given it a 10/10 but for the constant slo-mo which I believe was used due to the brief nature of the series. Very good acting, conveying so much emotion and some pretty good action scenes for a 15- minute webisode. I was very impressed with this and as a Halo novice, I am now so intrigued by the series that I want to play it more than I ever wanted to plan any other game! I put this up there with some of my other favourite shows, Battlestar Galactica (the remake) and Stargate Universe. This was very well done.