Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn

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.

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.

I've never played Halo so I was going into this movie somewhat blind not knowing what to expect. It started out ordinary enough with young cadets in a military school introducing themselves and stating why they joined. Much to my surprise, the wide swath of kids (teens really) had varying reasons for joining that extended beyond blood lust or just seeing how cool it would be to kill. That, in itself, was a big notch of respectability in my eyes. I expected a lot of HOO RAH type speech and antics and I didn't see that.

Furthermore, I looked for the typical teen movie clichés, because these were teens after all. Although it wasn't a high school setting, I was looking for the ultra popular beauty queen, the muscle-headed jock, the dweeb and the supporting cast. Fortunately, those characters never appeared. Halo proved to be a deeper, layered, better thought out film than I expected. It could be considered slow, but I thought it was right on point. Very nicely done.

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.

A few months ago when the first trailer came out for the web series, "Forward Unto Dawn", I was beside myself with excitement. I watched the trailer an easy 5-10 times, and then periodically checked back to view it again, in case I missed something the first time around. I've been a fan of the Halo series since day one of Halo C.E., and it's been really disappointing to not have a Halo movie I can feel proud of. Since high school, I've followed the hype surrounding the script writing and screenplay mock-ups of a potential Halo film, but they never panned out into anything real. Then, Microsoft and 343 Industries teamed up to create Forward Unto Dawn, and the hype surrounding a Halo movie returned. Only this time it wasn't going to be a movie, but a web series instead. And when it debuted on October 5th, I was one of the few to see it when it was only at 5k views(hipster moment). It was everything I expected and more. Superb acting, gorgeous visuals, a beautiful soundtrack, and the promise to deliver more and more in future episodes. Friday has always been my favorite day of the week, but now I have a reason to love it. Each episode debuts on a Friday, which means all my calls will be held, pizza will be delivered to my couch, and nothing is more important than those 20 minutes of Halo action. No feature length movie just yet? Well, this is the next best thing. If you call yourself a fan of the game, you...will...watch...this. Oh, and before I forget...Axios!!