This will be my first review on the site and as such I made a thread earlier asking what people would like to see reviewed most, and this film cropped up several times. Being a fan of the Warhammer 40K series and having never watched it, I decided to make it my first.
Ultramarines: The movie, is a collaboration between Games Workship and Codex Pictures to work on this 70-Minute long animated CGI film. The popular author Dan Abnett whom having written many novels based on the Warhammer 40K world, takes his place to write the story. Now on to the review!
The film gets off to a good start in true warhammer spirit. The credits have barely started before we are thrown into a conflict with an unknown enemy, from the first person standpoint of an unknown space marine. Gunfire explodes noisily above the sound of dropping shell casings and explosions thunder into the side of the one viewable building on screen, raining down debris. Not much can be made out at this point through the garbled shouts of battle and war, except the single clear line of dialogue ''Defend the relic''.
This is the basis for the story and after this brief 20-seconds or so of carnage, the credits finish and we meet our main characters engaged in what seems to be a friendly sparring match in a grand stone hall. One thing Im sure most will notice straightaway is the fact that though the sound effects in terms of impact and quality may be nice, the graphical detail and animations themselves are most definately not.
The entire film from this point on will be subject to less enjoyment because of the budget, which is a little dissapointing considering the size of the Warhammer franchise. Armour looks cheap and plastic and about as defensive as a packet of paper tissues, faces are blank showing no signs of intelligent life or expression and movements also look somewhat robotic and easy considering they are carrying roughly an adult elephant's weight of equipment on their backs.
(This is my poker face....)
Amongst other things and this will only affect those know the universe well, It doesnt seem to be one hundred percent authentic Warhammer stuff. Lore seems patchy in areas and the squad of space marines seem rather slow and unaccepting of any imminent danger, very unlike how they are supposed to act, constantly aware and ready to battle the taint of chaos with fist and bolter. At times characters even seem cowardly, whilst all the time still shouting ''And we shall know no fear'' which just seems daft. Chaos even seem dull witted and stupid, nothing but mindless savage animals that charge suicidally into enemy fire without any plan or tactical coordination which is wrong also and an insult to the lore of that race. I fear this may be Dan Abnett's infulence creeping in and may of been better written by a senior member of Games Workshop.
I won't ruin the story for you but even casual Warhammer fans will know it all too well. Space marines lose contact with a force stationed on a remote planet, and as such are sent out to investigate meeting an old enemy upon arrival being the basic jist of it. You have to wait through 20-minutes of introduction, highlighting and explaining who the Ultramarines actually are, before we get into the action. The action scenes in this short film are actually where it shines best even though there is only a handful during the entire thing, because for all the gripes I have with the graphical quality and animations, the voice acting and music is pretty fantastic.
Powerful british voice actors spew out cheesy lines of dialogue such as ''We are steel, We are Doom!'' and I absolutely love it. The film is extremely lucky that the level of voice acting is so good because the blank faces almost all look the same and most times are wearing helmets that cover the face anyway, so we can only really distinguish them most times by voice. The music is a mix of gregorian chanting and suitably epic orchestra pieces that add a much needed depth to the lacking areas of the film.
When the combat does start and the real brillance of the entire flick comes to life it seems to end all too soon, after only a handful of truely excellent battle scenes it seems to come swiftly to a disapointing anti-climatic ending. I feel it could of used a little longer overall to really flesh out the characters and develop a much more in-depth storyline to counter the low budget appearance of it all.
(I look badass... And I know it.)
Ultramarines: The Movie, recieves kudo's points simply for being the first of its kind. It might make a nice introduction to the Warhammer world for newcomers and even casual/hardcore fans will enjoy one viewing of it as I did. It didn't leave me with the feeling of fulfilment that I was hoping it would however, and I doubt it will many others either. I hope its just a taste of better things to come, but its a fairly decent start at least.
P.S. I'm an Ork fan, Cuz we'z da best, cuz lik, we'z made fer fightin'....N winnin'. WAAGHH<3
Pretty tired when I wrote this, so I'll probaly think its crap in the morning and edit the lot.
(Also I realise this a massive wall of text that most won't read, but Im unsure how to use the editing functions such as colour, pictures and word fonts. Do you have to be a subscriber?)
