Ultramarines: A Warhammer 40,000 Movie (2010) User Reviews

A good start but....

[imglorious · 7/10 · 21 December 2010]

Been waiting for this for a long time.... and now it's here.

The Good stuff: The voice acting was superb, everyone did a perfect job. 10/10.

Ambient music and general mood of the movie is dead on, I especially like the first minutes after landing on Mithron, the setting and mood just awesome. 9/10.

The detail of the warhammer 40k world, equipment & lore, is nearly perfect 9/10.

The Mediocre stuff: CGI and animation of characters notably melee combat was a bit awkward... maybe its just me, but it was fair for a first try 5/10.

The story... not bad, not good, a bit simple, expected a little bit more from Dan Abnett 5/10.

The Bad stuff: The Spacemarines! now I saw this with a friend of mine who has little or no knowledge of the 40k universe, and I had to explain a lot to him before and during the movie, and before the movie I told him about the spacemarines as being huge superhuman bad asses who kicks butt, whether its an army of heretics or aliens, after the movie he asked "whats so special about the spacemarines?" and to be honest I had the same feeling, you don't get the feeling they are anything special, not that I'm saying you feel like they are wimps, they just lack the Superhuman quality 3/10.

On board the Reclusiam, where are the Ultramarines serfs? who is flying the thing? are the only ones aboard the 12 Ultramarines and a couple of servitors? Here they could have put a few normal humans in, and see the Ultramarines stand head and shoulders over the tallest of the puny humans, but no instead you get a feeling that the Reclusiam is devoid of the and some computer flies the ship... 2/10 Way too short 76 mins? this is reflected in the plot of the movie which is pretty simple Buuuu! :o) I really wanted to score this high, but my personal verdict is... well 6/10 wait +1 just because it a 40k movie so final verdict 7/10.

Will I buy more 40k movies? yes! will I recommend others to buy and watch it? yes! will the fans be disappointed? no I think not :o)

Better than the trailers would have us believe.

[edcatfish · 7/10 · 18 December 2010]

So here we have our first Warhammer 40,000 movie.

Immediately there are some flaws that need to be addressed: Codex Pictures, the company responsible, have created this movie out of nothing less than a love of the background. While this is not a problem (and you can tell that they're not about to make any mistakes with the lore) this does mean that they've done it out of their own pocket. Games Workshop who own Warhammer 40,000 did not put any money into the movie! What we're left with is a CGI movie which suffers from bad CGI in many places. At worst, this can mean that shots look like they're from ancient video games (Ages of Empires I's cutscenes spring to mind). At best, which seems to be just as frequent, the shots are actually quite stunning. Mostly, it averages between the two.

There you have the first fault, the second is camera-work. Yet again, this is variable and at the start of the film I thought it was awesome. However, as the film progressed I felt that the camera shots managed to spot and point out the bad CGI. And while the beginning is strong in this film, the middle seems to hold on to lingering camera shots just a little too much. This, I fear, is the reason a lot of the action is not quite as exciting as in the beginning. That, and a lack of the mighty soundtrack to accompany these scenes.

Now, before I commence with the good I must address that this film is for fans of 40k. An ingrained knowledge of the background and understanding of Space Marines and Chaos is required to get full enjoyment out of the movie. It is not to say that you won't find it entertaining as a newcomer but you may find certain mannerisms of the protagonists strange, or not understand what an astropath is, or find it difficult to believe that this elite squad is after a relic that happens to be a book... the list goes on.

Warhammer 40,000 is an established background which started rooting itself in '87. No exceptions are made to explain it's immensely vast background in this movie. As a matter of fact, it focuses on relatively little when you look at ALL of the other things that didn't make it into this movie.

Now for the good:

The first thing that springs to mind is the Story. Given reign over the script for the first 40k film is top 40k novelist Dan Abnett. He delivers. Whenever there wasn't enough happening a timely line would add depth, humour or character to the film, keeping my interest throughout. It's great how the soldiers who refer to themselves as brothers feel like a brotherhood, and that each character acts as an individual (though it may be a little hard to tell more than four apart when they don helmets) with their own personalities and motivations.

The plot is pretty strong for a 70-minute flick. As far as I could see there were no plot holes and as far as plots go this one seems straight forward but still manages to pack a few surprises.

Next for kudos is the soundtrack. Though tastes may dictate whether or not you like this soundtrack, it is very appropriate for the movie. The kind of Latin chant is very fitting for Astartes warriors and their monastic-militant lifestyles. The sound of these chants are very strong and evoke powerful emotion. The opening scene aboard the Ultramarines' Strike Cruiser is a high example of this and is used well to implement the action and dialogue.

Thirdly comes the voice actors. These voice actors are brilliant and fill the boots of Astartes perfectly. Though you may prefer the baritone thunder of THQ's Space Marines in Dawn of War II, the voices chosen make characters more distinguishable and less like generic action heroes.

Lastly a mention goes to all the parts in this movie that rang true to fans like me. With any other company such a movie would look a hundred times better but would be at massive risk of not being true to the lore. We've seen it a million times before, it's just good to see it done right.

Overall, the film starts strong, wavers in the middle and builds again in momentum near the end. It isn't perfect but with all considerations on the table - it's good - 7/10.

A Final Note: If you love Warhammer 40,000 and want to see better movies in future, go and buy this. Buy it for you, buy it for other people you know'll like it. Buy it even if you didn't like it. It took Games Workshop 20 years before they let any company make a move, and it was this one. Future Warhammer 40,000 movies with other races and new stories (maybe even Horus Heresy movies) rest with the amount of money this film makes. Codex are out on a limb here. Furthermore, if you've watched this and are able to make videos, upload a review to the Ultramarines website. They can't improve their movies without knowing what they need to improve (and I'm sure they'll be happy to hear the positive feedback too!).

Brave try, solid start but flawed

[Tostig66 · 6/10 · 17 December 2010]

The background behind this film is a shoe string budget, some real fans of the genre and a writer who is well respected in the realms of fantasy literature. So with that in mind to compare this CGI film with the best of Pixar or Avatar would be unfair as it was never going to have the same "wow" factor.

For the uninitiated it is the 41st century and the human galactic empire is at war. Humanity's front line of defence is the space marines. Genetically enhanced super soldiers utterly loyal to the emperor encased in powered armour suits with very big guns.

This is the problem because while the movie looked better than I expected the whole (rather short) film revolves around a platoon of these humourless, quasi-religious soldiers going on a very linear mission. The script may not even be 60 pages long, nobody talks in anything other than short sentences and there are far more lines like "For the Emperor!" than anything approaching character development/banter and while that's fine for action scenes, as a film it makes the whole thing seem hollow.

The action is perfectly acceptable but nothing special and the whole feel of the movie is like a group going into a haunted house and are picked of one-by-one. The fact it is CGI allows some impressive vistas, a very large mother ship and some spooky supernatural going on but while every penny is on screen, you never really care about any of the protagonists so more time should have been spent on the basics- story, characters and dialogue and little less on the tech.

Watchable but not great

[sebpopcorn · 25 December 2010]

It was nice to see a 40k based movie but I found Ultramarines a bit disappointing to be honest.

The voice acting was good but the CGI ranged from good to very poor. Close up shots of the faces looked especially badly done but the vehicles looked good and for the most part the marines did too.

In terms of story it's pretty basic. There's no real introduction to the setting, probably because most viewers are going to be familiar with it but I thought this was a missed opportunity to explain the background for a few minutes with some nice sweeping shots of Terra and maybe the golden throne, that kind of thing.

There's no really good pitched battles, enemies appear in handfuls so you never get a sense of a decent fight which was a shame. There were also a few oddities which don't really seem to fit in. For example the captain is commanding a squad that's never been in battle? That's a command squad of veterans that's never had a battle? Good one. I can see why they did it for the plot but it makes no sense in the 40k universe. Nor does ripping on the apothecary for being a coward. In the 40k universe he is one of the most important marines in the chapter and certainly outranks a bog standard marine that's never been in battle by quite some way. By the way all those first timers would be scouts not full marines..and I could go on and on but of course none of this really spoils the movie at all but for a film made for fanboys it's a bit slack.

Overall it's worth a watch if you like 40k. Hopefully this is the first in a series and they will improve. A better storyline and animation would be required though to appeal to a wider audience.

Mediocre at best

[el01073 · 4/10 · 18 December 2010]

The movie is mediocre at best, not only if you are a fan, but if you are completely uninitiated to the universe of Warhammer 40K. Scene quality is mixed. Some scenes are clearly much better than others in terms of design, and CG quality, still better than the trailers though. The story is decent enough, but the dialog is too limited to make the voice actors' time on screen worthwhile. The voice acting is good, but the vaunted lip syncing that Codex pictures was supposed to use, is actually used in very few scenes and then looks like an animated cut-scene from a game was used. Concerning the atmosphere, it's grim, it's dark, and it looks very lonely out there. The massive Imperium is not conveyed to the viewer. Overall, this movie has the feeling like it was an extra added to a book or game, and not a feature-length movie, at least not one worth going to the theater for. If you are a Warhammer 40K fan, you will not be pleased with the result. If you are not a Warhammer 40K fan, I don't think you will be thrilled with the thought of becoming one.

Decent animated flick

[Rectangular_businessman · 6/10 · 13 January 2011]

The problem with almost all the movies inspired in video-games is that most of them are boring, poorly made and, the worst part of it, don't have anything to do with the games in which those films were inspired in first place.

That's why I'm glad to see that "Ultramarines" is not that kind of film. Sure, the plot is kinda basic, the animation is somewhat stiff (Not to mention that the characters are practically expressionless) but at least, this movie had the heart in the right place: In other words, at least this film have something to with the universe of Warhammer 40000, and it's not like most of Hollywood movies inspired in video-games, that are filled with lots of stupid stuff, like an annoying comic relief, bland and stereotyped characters, dumb lines and horrible soundtracks...Fortunately, there is absolutely nothing on that in this, being focused in the action and in the characters.

Even when the CGI isn't very impressive and the first part of the story is pretty slow (Very slow) it still much better than things such as "Halo Legends" or "Dante's Inferno: An animated epic". And of course, it is much better than the atrocities made by Uwe Boll and Paul W.S. Anderson.

6/10

Uninspired

[KingOfDreams · 4/10 · 25 January 2011]

Ultramarines is based (thematically) on a futuristic tabletop wargame, Warhammer 40K. The Warhammer 40K universe is a heavily militarized, Gothic styled fantasy universe that masquerades as sci-fi, while keeping all the common fantasy tropes. Its main attraction are the human super soldiers "Space Marines" - basically medieval knights in space and their fight against "enemies of the imperium".

Ultramarines depicts that fight in a small scale, through one mission of the Ultramarines chapter (fraction within the SM). Unfortunately the universe is very badly conveyed and the storytelling scope is so limited its obvious that the primary target of this film are the fans of WH40K.

As it stands they are the least likely to be pleased with the outcome. What is shown is one uninspired mission, loaded with every cliché imaginable, gripping a terrible script (although the actors made an effort) and wrapped in outdated CGI.

Its like a single episode of a TV series, or a comic book in terms of storyline and characterization - a part of a whole that never comes.

As a passive fan of WH40K I really wanted to like Ultramarines, but apparently it had neither the budget nor the creative drive to truly embrace the universe that its supposed to portray. Instead its a routine military/horror flick with characters you can't tell apart and a story you will not care about.

Skip it.

For Glory, and its gory!

[phoenixyk1 · 7/10 · 9 February 2011]

ULTRAMARINES - Indeed it is. Folowing the story of a small squad out on a simple re-con and coming against harsh forces they are ill prepared for, I was expecting a highly action-packed movie.

Sadly for those who love action - You may be disappointed. This is far more atmospheric which only serves to draw you in further to the story.

It has been a long wait with many false starts on the CGI project - However it is not disappointing. The effects are excellent and the story has the right balance of suspense and action. Graphics are wonderful and there is a nice bit of gore as well which I expected given the nature of the 40K universe.

Would I recommend this film - of Course! If I have one complaint - Its a very simple one... They have proved they can make these stories work amazingly, it would be amazing to see an actual Series rather than a number of movies - However the cost of CGI makes this impossible at this time.

Will definitely be looking forward to future releases

Amateur production - awful to watch.

[nockieboy · 3/10 · 4 April 2011]

I'm a Warhammer 40k fan and, having heard there was a film in the pipeline set in the Warhammer 40k universe, I was eager to see it. I was expecting something along the lines of a Lord of the Rings production - live action, mixed with CG and a great story line into a film that rocks your perceptions and leaves you aching for more.

Instead what you get is an amateur production, entirely CG, with some good voice actors but awful visuals. And I mean awful. Muddy imagery combined with the sort of pre-rendered visuals you'd expect from the cut-scenes in a game made 5 years ago (I kid you not!) combine with key-framed animation (i.e. NOT rotoscoped fluid animation, but the most basic sort of animation anyone could manage with a couple of hours practise in Maya or 3DS Max) to create a film that is painful to watch.

I was hoping for something that would kindle interest in the Warhammer 40k universe from people who may never have considered it before watching the film.

Instead you're left wondering which Dawn of War games they lifted the cut-scenes from to make a film that I would be embarrassed to sit with my partner and watch and say, "This is Warhammer 40k - isn't it cool?!" Avoid.

A fair glimpse at the Warhammer 40.000 universe but not a great movie

[haggar · 6/10 · 28 December 2010]

After watching this animation, I had very conflicting feelings about it. I was a bit disappointed because it didn't work, for me, as a sci-fi movie. But then I also realized that I wasn't happy about the choice of the races portrayed, as I think the Eldar Harlequines would make for a much more visually pleasing experience. Nevertheless, as a sci-fi movie, it might not have delivered anyway.

Then I had another, retrospective, look at what the movie presented, and realized that some essential aspects of the Warhammer 40.000 universe were touched upon in a balanced way. It doesn't distract the casual viewer, and it probably wets the palate of the die-hard Warhammer 40.000 nerd. (I am neither, I just happened to study this universe for a few weeks.)

The plot is vaguely interesting, though the action suffers from tempo issues at times, which I am sure any viewer will notice and be a bit frustrated about. The action sequences range from boring to fascinating. Here, too, I have some conflicting impressions.

The characters are clichéd but one is really not expected to care much about them in a personal way. They are all warriors, and in that sense, the Warhammer 40.000 universe's flavor comes through and it probably doesn't disturb too much.

All in all, I think I could have spent these 70 minutes in worse ways, and hope most viewers will gain at least the same amount of fun as I did.

Could have been something really great.......

[thiscouldbethelongestema · 3/10 · 17 December 2010]

I really wanted this movie to be great. I had been waiting months for this to be released and although my expectations weren't that high i still felt let down by this title. As i watched this i really wanted to get in to it and had read many of the warhammer books in the past so felt I could overlook any failing in the movie as i really wanted it to be good. Unfortunately the animation is so poor that it constantly pulls you back out of the story. Characters look wooden and reminded me of older animated TV series e.g. starship troopers. The special effects, such as explosions and gunfire look terrible. There is only one half decent fight scene but even there the characters move as if they have arthritis and clunk about the place with as much grace as the miniature figurines upon which this movie gets its source material. Again. I wanted this to be good and wish i could give it a higher score but honestly. The cut scenes in many of the games are of much higher quality.

The good: excellent voice acting/casting. good music. Attention to detail of 40k lore. decent story if a little slow.

The bad: Animation is very poor.

Great first attempt that will please 40k fanbase

[alexray_67 · 8/10 · 20 December 2010]

This movie is an easy 10 for long time Warhammer 40k fans like myself, but I am looking at it through the viewpoint of the average viewer for the sake of fareness.

The plot was good and was very true to the lore of the gamesworkshops Warhammer universe. While the dialogue was sometimes short one liners and cheesy, the voice acting was magnificent. Terrance stamp and John hurt offer up truly inspiring performances along with the rest of the cast. The choral and atmospheric music is very well done and they avoided using gloomy or intense mash ups of sounds clearly stating what the mood should be, telling you how to feel. The downside is that the animation is somewhat low quality CGI, although not as bad as many people make it out to be. The story grabs your attention so well that you soon forget about the low quality animation. As far as run time, 76 minutes is not ideal, but you rarely realize how short it was unit you actually inspect the clock. Lastly, this film is aimed at a very small fanbase, being us Gamesworkshops wargamers. I look forward to more Warhammer 40k films in the future and I hope that Codex Pictures continues to produce them with the same quality and attention to detail as this one.

Flawed, but watchable

[a05102267 · 6/10 · 12 January 2011]

"Ultramarines" managed to catch my attention, despite the fact that I never played the game in which the film was inspired, mostly because, this is one of the very few CGI animated film that wasn't aimed to kids, being way more ambitious and darker than other productions of this kind.

Still, "Ultramarines" is not perfect: The animation is uneven, some details seem somewhat neglected (Like for example, the eyes of the characters, which seem totally devoid of any kind of emotion) some parts of the story were slow and boring (And a bit confusing) On the other side, the voice acting was pretty good, and the music score gives this an epic atmosphere. Also, I liked the fact that in this film weren't any single kind of annoying cliché that are some common in other films (Animated or not) something that makes this flick way more interesting and attractive, at least for me.

Even when this title doesn't have a spectacular animation (Like, for example, movies like "Beowulf" or "Final Fantasy: Advent Children") I still found this to be good and worth-watching. Personally I found it to be a decent action flick, that doesn't live up for the whole potential that it had, but which is much better than almost all the other movies inspired in video-games.

Barely watchable

[darkshape-915-452078 · 1/10 · 8 January 2011]

The director obviously too a dump on the saga that is Warhammer. Just off the top of my head: corny, lame lines; the FEW action scenes were just terrible; total lack of even the simplest realism

Are we supposed to believe that those 10 marines and 3 tech-priests are the only crew of this leviathan starship? How about the marine's armor that gets penetrated from end-to-end by a single shot from a bolter... And whats with the helmets - every marine took his helmet off at least 10 times. If I was at war, taking off my helmet would be a very bad idea. But kinda think of it - the armor gets penetrated by a single shot, so - whats the point?

The only thing saving this production is the fame of the game Warhammer 40k (obviously its not enough). The game actually has better scripts.

Better luck next time.

[c1879758 · 5/10 · 5 January 2011]

What can I say? The CGI makes criticized Final Fantasy look like brilliant and finished, but we all knew that already. The characters are shallow and have the personality of a rock, and power armor certainly doesn't help. Most of the time there's a group of identical marines (excluding the Captain and the Apothecary) wandering around. The movie starts slowly and the first half of the movie consists mostly of the new space marines playing macho and wandering aimlessly.

I tried to enjoy the movie by ignoring the CGI, but in some parts it rears its ugly head. Half of the movie the marines wander in a sandstorm because Codex Pictures didn't bother to model the environment, which is quite absurd as the movie was hyped to use the-state-of-the-art technology. In the only part where a Chaos Space Marine is seen without a helmet, it's a nasty sight. In a bad way. Sometimes the facial animation is frankly awkward, like in this poor Chaos Space Marine's case. Sometimes it seemed that they were aware of the lacking visuals and tried to "cover" it with excessive use of the smoke effect. Or then they just really love smoke.

I could also complain about the lore errors, prometheum not being gel, bolter rounds not exploding and Crozius shooting magic beams, but I spare you.

The movie had good parts, the story, as predictable as it was did entertain even though the pacing needed more attention. But hey, it's warhammer, and I doubt you expecting anything deep from the movie. Right? They did try hard. They tried to add 'thrill' to the movie with Chaos Marines whispering in the bushes and (unintentionally amusing) sudden face zooms. There were nice little details, like "thoughts for the day" flashing on the marine's visor screen.

While the CGI makes me wonder whether to laugh, cry, or take a blowtorch to my retinas, the audio content compensated it, if not totally, well. I've heard differing opinions about the voice acting. Some say it is good, a few say it is bad. But here I'd like to remind you that bad voice acting and voice acting that doesn't fit are two different things. I think the cast was chosen well, with one exception. Donald Sumpter did well as Pythol, even though his lines ranged from Captain Obvious to just downright hilarious. And sometimes he just sounded like an old man whining about his prostate which doesn't really match my image of a Space Marine. Music and voice effects, they were good, but nothing exceptional.

A bad movie? Nah. A good movie? Nah. After watching the movie, I'm still more or less sane, so I guess it's not a bad way to spent an hour. But still, would I pay 40$? No. If you expected the movie to be the messiah 40k movie the mankind has been waiting for, you're gonna be disappointed. But if you were like me, watching the trailers with zero expectations, it ain't a bad movie. Just don't expect too much.

Solid start, could have been better

[Mattsworkname · 7/10 · 13 February 2011]

While trying to create a movie about the Warhammer 40k, your taking on a daunting task. beyond anything else, the vast scope and scale of the 40k universe makes it complicated and costly to make a movie about.

Ultramarines deals with this by keeping the focus narrow and tight on a small group of Troops and there leader, rather then the Large scale, sometimes massive battles that occur in the other media and the board game itself.

Warning: Spoilers may occur.

That said, lets talk about the good.

Voice work: Being an CGI animated feature, this had to be good, and thanks to some top notch work by the principle actors, it came out very good. It's worth watching just to hear some rather famous voices shouting things you'd never expect them to say, such as john Hurt screaming out "BURN Heritic" during a battle.

Sound work: Faithful to it's source material and we designed. The guns have the nice solid boom you want to hear, the chain sword sounds, like a chainsaw sword should. The ambient sound and music, when needed, and the other sound work is all top notch.

Visual: effective and acceptable, if not perfect, it's only major weakness is that the limited budget meant the scope had to be limited as well, so we couldn't get to see the big, expansive battles one would expect to see in the 40k universe.

Now, the not so good.

Story: while functional and a good start, it again falls prey to the limits of scope. With a small cast, you need to give them more to work with as far as character development is concerned, and beyond a few items, there's not a whole lot of it in this story, nor is the story all that unique or interesting. Non fans may find it cliché as a result.

Overall: 7, not bad, not great, a good start and hopefully any future movies will be given bigger budgets and allowed greater scope then this one was, but as a starting point, it works and works well.

Worth a look.

Why oh why!?

[dracopticon · 1/10 · 14 June 2011]

This review contains spoilers, don't read if you haven't seen the film!

They had it all: a fan base of millions, big financial backers, a setting that has mesmerized people all over the world, great actors and a huge expectancy from all the people who wanted to see it.

And what did they do? They made a film that's infinitely weaker than the much shorter computer game intros that were made for the Dawn of War games! The people that made the intros (especially for the first DoW game) is immensely more gifted and has more insight, know-how and general interest in the WH40K setting than the ones making this "film".

I am astonished, sad and tremendously eager to know just how this was possible? How can the makers of the game, the company of Games Workshop for instance, even begin to contemplate giving this so-called movie a "go". It's totally inconceivable.

1. The so-called "marines" are on an IQ-level similar to the Orks.

2. The "tactic" that these super humans use while going on this mission is so full of holes and generally just without any sort of prepared thought. Remember; these are the Ultramarines, the same warriors whose leader wrote the Codex of the Adeptus Astartes. This codex allegedly tells how a successful strategy can be obtained from thousands of different battle situations, like Sun Tzu's "The Art of War".

3. The chaos marines also behaved totally without thought, and only threw themselves against the imperial marines in wave after wave. All the imperials had to do, was standing put and shoot. And these, the chaos marines, are supposed to be descended from Warmaster Horus himself, the ones that calls themselves the Black Legion. These should be the best of all chaos marines! No, this has to be forgotten and the filmmakers need to go back to their draw boards. Make a new, much improved film, and maybe I'll watch.

A good stab

[d-n-ebeck · 6/10 · 16 December 2010]

A real, honest to goodness 40K movie has been a long time coming. This is a genuine, if short, glimpse into the far future, where there is only WAR ;) The biggest hurdle that the crew have to overcome is that 40K is huge. Over 20 years in creation, there is more back-story in the word "Ultramarine" than they can fit into a single 70 film. So, in a brave move, they don't try. These Ultramarines are kick-ass soldiers with big armour and bigger guns. The rest of it is implied and there are enough queues for fans, without boring everyone else to death by explaining it explicitly. Even "Chaos" is skimmed over, apart from being the bad guys and "like us once". I think the only time the Emperor gets mentioned is as "Emperor protects".

The Dan Abnett story is a simple, but well told one. It's actually a fairly good representation of a few linked 40K games, which is a good start. The animation works fairly well, if a little stilted at times. The voices are fairly well acted and mostly fit the faces. Although I did think that the veteran Marines looked rather old; the newly-promoted Novices looked ready for battle, but the Captain and Apothecary seemed too old for running around a desert with a bolter.

I enjoyed this. I think it's a good window on the 40K universe, although I naturally wish it could be longer, deeper, more involved. It's a little cheesy in places, but certainly no more so than many action movies. The "Collector's Edition" is OK; the added prequel graphic novella is a nice intro as to why a squad is on the world. £25 may be a little steep, but I'm a hobby obsessive, so I don't mind paying for a nice package. And I guess that if they make money on it, more may follow.

Un-Watchable!

[j_e_newman · 1/10 · 13 February 2011]

If you like a bunch of heavily armed men standing around in a circle with their helmets off, or trudging across a featureless landscape and talking about death, glory, and battle in completely meaningless and entirely repetitive terms, you will LOVE THIS MOVIE! If you have a pulse, and more than two brain cells rubbing the sticks of thought together to build the fire of intellect, you will be bored to tears by this crappy, idiotic attempt at film-making.

Hello!! I have news for you, to make a movie, you need a flipping story. This movie didn't have one.

Everyone who likes this movie plays the game, and are so brainwashed by it, that they ejaculate in their pants when watching this complete piece of trash.

Everyone else hates it, and deservedly so.

The single good point is the CGI is pretty cool. The bad points are everything else. No plot, no character depth, no back story, crappy accents, horrible choices for voice actors, little or no way to differentiate from a bunch of faceless idiot characters when they are wrapped up in their helmets. Not that it would really matter, even when they are all standing around without their helmets talking about, glory, death, duty, honor, dignity, they are all bald and indistinguishable from each other anyway.

I can't tell you in family terms, how much I hate this piece of trash. Most of the reviews seem to be along the lines of, "well it came close to the feel of the game," or "it wasn't bad for a first attempt." Anyone thinking along these terms needs to pull their heads out and ask themselves how exciting it would be to watch a movie based on Pong. Sure endless hours of fun to play, but is there a story there? I think not.

Secondly, the idea that only a Warhammer maniac, could say something like, "Not bad for a first attempt!" just dooms the thought of anyone ever making a 2nd one.

Because if only a completely rabid fan could muster even a lukewarm review for this piece of garbage, there's no way anyone in Hollywood (yes, Hollywood) could possibly be stupid enough to invest a dime in a sequel.

Thank the Stars!

Maybe not seeing the same movie

[thethingthatshouldnotbe-1 · 7/10 · 30 March 2013]

Not sure what so many reviewers are harping about,seems like people complain just to complain.This film is not on the same quality level as Beowulf but hey,Games Workshop does not have the kind of Hollywood money needed to get superior animation.Sure,I was a little disappointed but when you have waited so long to see a Warhammer movie,you take what you can get.The voice acting was excellent,but that is to be expected when you have the likes of Stamp,Pertwee,and Hurt,etc...on board.Some may find the dialog bizarre,or maybe even stunted.But who would think that Space Marines are great orators?? They are all clones who are so entranced with the sacred dogma of Emperor Worship that to them great conversation consists of quoting Imperial scripture.My main beef with the film was it seemed too short,at the end of one hour and sixteen I was hungry for more but was left with the scraps called credits.That and I am no fan of the Ultramarines,would have much rather seen the Imperial Fists or even a Chaos chapter,like the Death Guard be the center of the story.Oh well,maybe next time.Last thing,don't pick apart it's faults but just savor it as a fun,albeit short WH40K flick.

I really wanted to like this.

[thatguycarlos-958-871520 · 1/10 · 23 January 2011]

I've never been a Warhammer 40k player, but had always been intrigued. As a long time player of PnP(Pen n' Paper) games like Rifts, Battletech/Mechwarrior and D&D, I thought 'this might be a good way to get into the story/background of the game without having to pick up a manual'. Alas, I was sadly mistaken. There is no background or characterization at all and comes off as if you're picking up a TV show mid-season: Terribly confusing. Why was this created? Yeah, it was supposedly made on a shoestring budget, but that's no excuse for just plain bad plot development. I finished watching the movie with none of my questions answered about the Warhammer story or universe. I'll NOT be taking up playing the game. And it's this movie's fault.

Warhammer Hits the Nail on the Head!

[mankind-photo · 8/10 · 21 February 2011]

I think this film is 100% faithful to it's source material, which was a brave step, and may alienate the mainstream a little. This in my opinion was well worth while, because to a fan of the old Games Workshop franchise this film was all I could have hoped that it would be.

I found the animation really appealing and an ideal route to use. The voice overs chosen were perfect, especially the great John Hurt. I loved the way the story went full circle, it worked just like a good graphic novel which I understand is writer Dan Abnett's day job. Fans of 40K won't be disappointed in my opinion.

I couldn't stop smiling with every bolter shot!

Good first attempt for a Warhammer 40k movie

[hypersonic8999 · 6/10 · 23 January 2012]

This is a good film, considering it's the first one about the Warhammer 40k universe done by Games Workshop. Overall, the plot is not so great and I expected more from Dan Abnett, the animation seems kind of rushed and stubby in most parts of the film, where in some it's relatively good, the acting is good, but the characters are not convincing enough as actual Space Marines.

Analytically: 1) The plot has a good line, but it lacks in a lot of its background. For example, what is a single squad of Space Marines doing in a planet that had a massive fortress build and guarded by Imperial Fists nonetheless (who are expert in defence) and was overrun by a surely huge army? By 40K standards, there should have been a whole company there, or at least a veteran squad with an Imperial Guard regiment on their backs. The only chapter known to send single squads to deal with problems anywhere is the Grey Knights chapter, as it's spread out throughout every galaxy sector and rarely acts as a single chapter. 2) The animation was both good and bad. It was cool that they decided to go with CGI and motion capture technology but they did a poor job at delivering something that was supposed to considered an 90-minute animated film. It felt more like a cut-scene of a game. Movement was stubby and very few models were at the screen at any given time. It was excellent artwork but it lacked on detail and depth. An Imperial vessel is meant to be an immense structure, kilometres long and supposed to have at least a million in personnel inside it. The one portrayed had hardly 10 marines and 2-3 servitors. The landing bays were empty and they are supposed to be bristling with activity as are other areas of the ship. The battles on the planet surface were very poor in numbers. We had 2-3 Chaos marines coming up at the heroes at each moment, while the rest waited patiently their turn to die at the Ultramarine chainswords, which showed how little work and how many limitations the animating crew did and had. 3) Space marines, even young ones see battle for at least 5 years before becoming space marines. They serve as scouts and have to prove themselves in the battlefield before being granted rights of wearing a power armour. The apothecary is revered by all marines (even the captain and chapter master) since his function is extremely important and not talked back to by a neophyte. The acting was good but because of the background given to the characters they weren't that convincing 4) No prior history is given about what 40k is about. People who don't know anything about the universe will just find the movie dull. 5) The music was amazing and was one of the few positive things in the film.

Although I liked it very much and have seen it multiple times, I was dismayed by the plethora of errors in it and would like something more from GW next time. It cried of limited budget and poor work put in it. The actors themselves said that they went in for the motion capture and voice acting maximum one-two hours each (poor direction?). I think GW invested more in getting high-paid actors and hyping up the movie than in actually putting it together. I'd propose that next time they use cheaper actors if they have money problems and invest more in animation and direction. They could have had a much better result if they used 2D animation instead of 3D (much like Dead Space: Downfall or Heavy Metal 2000 was done).

Overall I give it a 6/10 because a) it's a not bad first attempt, b) I wouldn't want to discourage GW from making another, hopefully improved, one.

For Hardcore Fans Only

[ChojinZ · 3/10 · 20 December 2010]

Sure I've painted a couple of miniatures and played some Dawn of War, but other than that my knowledge of the Warhammer 40k universe is pretty limited to say the least. I watched the movie in hope of maybe learning a thing or two, since it seems like an extremely rich and well crafted universe. But instead of answers, I'm left with a hundred new questions. Like why is the emperor so divine? Why would anyone build a shrine/temple on an uninhabited planet? What is Chaos and what do they want and why? Why is the hammer "sacred" or "special", and if it's so powerful why doesn't everyone wield one? What did the guy with the white armor extract from the dead bodies and why? Etc.

My guess is that humans have become some kind of religious fanatics that go around space building churches on empty rocks. And maybe those super hammers are really difficult to manufacture. Or maybe only the "worthy" may have one (this would be even more stupid). Anyway, my point is that people who know nothing or little about 40k will probably have a very hard time making sense of any of this.

The quality of the CGI is OK in some areas and abysmal in others. The armors of the marines are the highpoint of the movie. They look great. Textures, lightning and shadow effects, lots of details etc, all comes together perfectly to make them look really cool and bad ass - As long as they don't move. Animations are terrible and make these huge, intimidating war machines appear light as feathers. This breaks the magic throughout the entire movie. Head/face models are extremely poor and makes all the characters look like old, old men. The fire effect from the flamethrower is so bad it ruins every shot it's in.

None of this matters though, since this is a small budget movie made for fans and fans only. Everyone else will probably not be as forgiving and ultimately disappointed as there is neither story nor special effects to entertain.

Very disappointing

[rds_1 · 3/10 · 7 January 2011]

I watched the trailer and thought it would be cool. But no it really wasn't. Never played the game and am certainly not going to.

After watching a few minutes I thought I should write down the stuff that annoys me. So here's the list.

• Lot of religious crap, god is called emperor. - First 27-28 min of 70 in total nothing happens just some more crappy talking and waling around. - Walking around with some stupid flag, they never heard of stealth. - The scout ship they send ahead is utterly unprotected. - The ridiculously fat suits they are wearing seems to be utterly useless. So why hinder your movement like that? - Enemy is zombie like but they do not even aim for the head, well sometimes. - Everything is rather primitively drawn, looks like a computer animation from many years ago. - A chainsaw blade seems to have more damaging effects than guns. Lots of shooting very little damage. - The bad guys seem to be much stronger, Ultramarines are dropping like flies. I would think an Ultramarine should be able to take a generous beating before actually taking damage. The Ultra really doesn't show anywhere. - More religious crap... - Again more than 20min without any action just some walking around. - Even an Axe gets trough their armor with ease. - They're flying trough space in churches. - The fight with the demon at the end was mildly entertaining.