Greg Russell
Halo 4 : Forward Unto Dawn (2012)
(Goes well with young versions of Starship Troopers and war movies)
I’ve never played Halo. That’s the name of the video game this movie is based on. I know it is a shooter game. I’ve never enjoyed a movie based on a video game. Let me think about that for real now that I’ve typed it out…. Tomb Raider, no, Mortal Kombat, no, Super Mario Bros, not really. Maybe the closest was Resident Evil? No. Heck , when I got this movie I thought I would have to watch the first three to understand what was going on. OH SILLY ME, the “4” wasn’t a reference to the number in the film series, it was a reference to the number in the game series! Man oh man. Preemptively this was not looking good for a movie pieced together from a collection of web shows but it ended up much better than expectations.
A group of cadets are in training to fight “insurrectionists”. Through a few field exercises we see that following orders is more important than thinking. Thomas Lasky finds this out the hard way when he is punished and ostracized for disobeying orders. Lasky struggles with the memory of his brother, a former soldier who recently past away, and a rare sensitivity to a chemical common in the military. When he is faced with making a choice of walking away or staying in the family military business the whole world is turned upside. Almost literally. Interrupting his first (and only kiss) with the girl soldier are emergency calls. Who would’ve known that the planet would be attacked by super powerful aliens all of a sudden! In fact, within just 15 minutes of their first appearance it is announced that they are they only survivors… on the whole planet.
Something I didn’t gather while watching the movie is that this takes place on another planet separate from Earth. Oh, and it’s the year 2525, I’m not sure if that is mentioned either. I’m not really sure who the “insurrectionists” were but I think I gathered that they were/are willing to join the fight against the aliens (which my research found out to be something called the Covenant). All this probably would have been quite clear to someone who plays the game but not to a general audience.
Halo 4 : Forward Unto Dawn actually has good acting and atmosphere. I’m a sucker for the soldiers go to boot camp before they go to war storyline. I first this in Gung Ho! (1943) and The Sands of Iwo Jima (1949) and have loved all their re-boots! My daughter got really upset when some of the characters died. While no one is developed in much depth they each have a distinct personality that is consistent through the film. The opening shots of interviewing the cadets about their views on being a soldier, while trite, was really well executed to develop these caricatures.
The problem is, I feel, there is too much the movie wanted to dive into and just never explored any of them in depth. There is allusion of dissent among the cadets as to the “guilt” of the insurrectionists. Thomas Laskey’s health condition is shown but never really fully explored other than an “out” for his military service. We see that there is a common enemy through some screenshots of the actual video game (used as surveillance footage) but we don’t really know where that battle is taking place and who is fighting the battle. Everything is just put together at such a fast pace.
I was glad to have the movie “introduce” a war film (of sorts) to my daughter. While my son will sit and watch any black and white World War 2 film I put on, I would have to coax her into it somehow. The fact that these were younger actors and that the aliens had light-sabery swords kept her on the edge of her seat. Kids were nervous and cheering through the whole last half of the film.
I’m sure I missed all the nuance and inside jokes from the popular video game series in the movie. Well, not ALL of them. When the one super soldier says “… but you can call me Master Chief” I turned and said “That’s gotta be a reference to the game right there. Master Chief, really?” I guess Thomas Lasky is an important character in the Halo 4 game. Missing the innuendos was just fine by me. It allowed me to see it as a film rather than a patchy extension of a video game. Highly flawed story-telling was made up with atmosphere and enough high stakes tension to keep the family watching and laughing.
Mom says “I played World of Warcraft. Thrall was my Master Chief.”
Best Guess : 9+ (fighting and some characters die)
Adult Grade : B-
Kids’ Grade : It was great!