Ultramarines – The Movie

So a friend and I sat down last night and watched the new Space Marine movie – Ultramarines.  I thought the movie was not bad for Codex Pictures first outing but I felt like I was essentially watching a video game or a university project the entire time.  (SPOILERS AHEAD)

The animation wasn’t bad per say but I was definitely aware of it, especially during weird or jerky movements.  Again, I felt like I was watching a long cut-scene in Dawn of War.  There were a couple of cool scenes, like when the heavy bolter shells are falling and you see the one the space marine was marking, but overall don’t expect to be blown away by the effects.  The sound was pretty good; the voice acting was above par and the bolter fire/chainsword revving sounded awesome.

The storyline was fairly predictable with maybe 1 cool twist.  I felt like none of the battles were that epic…  I mean there were essentially 3 big battle scenes.  The first was a shoot out, the second was waves of chaos space marines being cut down bolter fire (seriously, power armour is really unimpressive in this movie), and the final battle is between a daemon prince and a sergeant.  I felt like either the bolter was way too good or that power armour was way too weak as every shot by the bolters seems to slice apart chaos space marines…  The power armour was like paper.  And yet, in the final battle, the daemon prince can’t seem to crack one marines power armour and is predictably cut down by 1 sergeant and a thunder hammer.   Perhaps I’m trying to compare the movie too much to the game but none of it seemed to match.  Perhaps this is simply the same reason why movies are never as good as the book.

Overall, I would recommend any warhammer fan to check it out and support the movie (hopefully the next ones will be better) as its still entertaining and ultimately it’s still warhammer.