Beanbioca As Good As It Gets

FuzzyTagz If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

FirstWitch A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Siflutter It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

Paul Magne Haakonsen Granted, I have never played the "Halo" games, because those types of games never really appealed to me, but I was, of course, familiar with the universe. I mean, it is "Halo" after all, kind of hard to miss out entirely on that.I had not heard anything about this 2012 movie prior to finding it on Netflix, I believe it was, and then sitting down to watch it. I must admit that I did have some expectations to the movie. It is "Halo" after all.The movie started out alright, but very quickly lost its momentum and its appeal. And by the 25 minutes marker, I was ready to give up out of a sheer lack of interest. The movie had nothing to offer me, and I was more than bored with the storyline (or shall I say, lack thereof). But I decided to keep with it and give the movie a chance to win me over.When I hit the 36 minute marker, I gave up. This movie was just pointless and offered nothing in terms of a proper storyline or appeal in any way to me. The characters were flat and irrelevant, and basically were generic and cliché all the way, and that made me have zero interest in the characters. And the storyline just was too shallow and progressed literally nowhere in the 36 minutes that I endured of this ordeal of a movie.I was expecting quite a bit more than what was delivered on the screen, and I was sorely disappointed with what I suffered through in the 36 minutes that I endured. I have absolutely no intention of ever returning to watch the rest of the movie, because there was nothing for me to enjoy here.

Granger 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.

Hannah Armstrong The first time I watched Forward Unto Dawn, I had absolutely no idea what was going on. My only exposure to Halo media was the multiplayer function in Halo 2.Despite that, FUD presented me with a story that made me care about the characters, it gave me enough information to understand some of what was going on, but not enough that I felt like I knew everything -- which I'm assuming was the goal, as the perspective we're given is that of the cadets at this officers' academy who also don't know the full story either.Some might call the buildup 'slow' or 'boring', but as a storyteller I can appreciate taking the time for your viewers to make some kind of connection to the characters before you throw them into the action and the chaos.FUD did a very good job of introducing The Master Chief, easily the most iconic character in the Halo franchise. As said before, I knew absolutely nothing about Halo when I started out, but the Chief's first appearance still had me jumping in my seat. It was very exciting, because even I knew that was when it was about to get REAL.I enjoyed the final confrontation with the Hunters at the end, and the appearance of the iconic Halo theme in the background when Master Chief defeated the last one. It was very dramatic, but in a good way.I also liked the inclusion of the other two Spartan-IIs we see in FUD - Fred-104 and Kelly-087. While not given much screen time, it's a nice nod to people who have been fans for a lot longer, who would recognize them.My one qualm is the death of Cadet Silva, as its only purpose seemed to be to inspire Cadet Lasky. Maybe that was just me. My honest rating -- 9.5/10

view_and_review 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.