http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6g1yyWEfks
Around... sence the Halo games were released it has been rumored that Weta digitals, (the same masterminds who made the effects for King Kong) have been makeing some animatronics and "vehicles" resembling that of the popular videogame franchise. An ocassional Youtube video from someone's camcorder captureing one of these things has popped up here and there (Personally I've seen some it looks like they just stripped down a jeep. : /) But finnally, not to long ago, proof of this movie has erupted, very vividly. This 8 minute preview (link above is also rumered to be the very begining of the movie) pretty much reveals the style of the movie, and from the looks of it, it's going to be epic. The movie is scheduled for a release around 2009.
Now here is my personal opinion, as a critic/director myself I take alot, and I mean ALOT into account when looking at movies. The style of this movie seems great, it really puts me into point of view of those characters (especially with the handy cam like look here and there) I love the glare of the sun light wich adds such a harsh tone to the area, but the set is just crap, plain and general crap. Looks like they set up a bunch of walls for the actors to randomly run around get hit against and all that ****. Not only does it just look like a random bunch of walls, it looks like a random bunch of walls ontop of a junk yard. Seriously, is this the best a movie can compare to such a well known franchise? When I look at the Halo 1-3 level designs I see diversity and neatness. The design is just almost flawless and fitting, but when I look at this set for the battleground... it looks dull, it almost led me to think the preview was fake. Really it seems like they put up a half assed effort and hope that because the Halo name is slapped onto it's title it will bring in lots of cash. But then again, lets talk about the Franchise. It is VERY sucsessful, I've seen all those little Halo toys and **** that people buy as well as the game itself, Halo fans are well, Halo crazed. They love it and that probably means they will mindlessly attend this film witch for all we know could be crap. I mean I haven't seen many games turned into movies that look decent at least. Boks hell yeah you can turn those into movies, but video games? Especially ones as diverse as the Halo Universe. There is obviously so much to be explained in a limited 2-3 hours. And I really don't know if the director can do it in such a short time. People can take hours on games, hours and hours and hours, hell even days. And I don't think a film is expansive enough to actualy acheive greatness while still acurately depicting the story and it's characters. And alas back to the movie, what is with the Covenant (is it even the covenant?) they look like big fury dudes, and it seems like it was a half assed costume that probably could tke me a total of 3 minutes to design. And if thats not a costume then I'd have to say that the effects are so seemless it is scary, but seriously I couldn't even tell these guys were aleins, looks more like something that has strands of spikey **** coming out of it's poores. O-O
But then again, I guess you could contridict everything I took a total of about... 5 minutes by saying "dude it's just a preview." but really just think about it. Previews are practicly the movie. It is depicting the style and overall, I don't know if I like it or hate it.
Previe gets a 5/10 from me.