Day 047 || Halo Legends

Halo Legends, 2010

Dir. Various

I debated with myself for a little bit whether or not Halo Legends could actually qualify as an actual movie due to many factors, but decided that regardless of the compartmentalized story segments (seen in several other films, such as Love Actually, Crash, Twilight Zone the Movie, or several others), or the fact that is was direct to video (which should never dictate or validate a film), that it should be taken as a film in such respects. Even if it isn't a very good one. And it definitely isn't.

Halo Legends, for the uninitiated, is a segment of short animated stories pinned together under the theme borrowed from a video game series, Halo, which has become a big part of gaming history. Whether you love or hate the games is regardless, if you're involved with videogame culture in the slightest, you know of the Halo series. So that in mind, a bunch of Japanese animators got together and came up with various takes on the Halo universe, much akin to the Animatrix, and how it explored several different aspects of the universe behind the Matrix films. In fact, if you've seen the Animatrix, you know what to expect here.

I was disappointed in regards to the quality here. Nothing ever reaches the sheer visual or animated quality of the Animatrix, and everything here just feels a tad bit cheaper than what was accomplished in the Animatrix. That might be in part due to budgetary differences, of which I have no knowledge of...anyways, the animation isn't the only important part of the package. The important thing is if the stories work together to create a better understanding of the world that fans love, and in some ways it does, and in some ways it doesn't. There are no new revelations, or anything new learned here, very much unlike the Animatrix. Whereas the Animatrix explored very vast, different, and creative areas in the world it payed homage to, everything here has been seen and done before in the games, with the exception of a couple of the stories on display, and they all slowly start to feeling boring and repetitive.

The first two shorts tell the history of the Halo universe, but if you've played the games, none of this is new or surprising, and it by the time the second story was being told I started to completely lose interest. This might not be a problem for those unfamiliar with the universe, but when paying homage to a series and making a project for the fans, it's an odd choice that doesn't payoff the way it should have. The rest of the stories are all variations on typical and cliched moments one would expect to find in a war story with the exception of two that really stand out.

One is called "Odd Man Out", and tells the story of a 'Thirteen-thirty-seven', or '1337', a soldier who is far from his titular description. He's a clutz and never really seems like he has complete control of the situations he gets himself into but always manages to pull through, much like one of my favorite comic characters, Deadpool. It's funny and done in a very over-the-top style that it makes it a breath of fresh amidst the drab and boring war stories found in the collection. Another story that stands out is Ghost, which again, for the most part is a typical war story, but it's done so well that I can easily forgive some of the more trite moments that comprises it.

I could go on and break down each single segment, in total I believe there are eight, but of those eight I really enjoyed two, I thought two were decent, and found the other four completely lacking in creativity, fun, or much value in all honesty. As a collection it falls flat on its face, and I'm sure those who aren't into the Halo universe will absolutely not get any satisfaction from this. Fans of the universe, might not even embrace this. It could have been so much more interesting and diverse, but instead it comes off as largely filler material with some brilliant bits hidden beneath all the thin and boring storytelling.

2 out of 5