Ultramarines: A Warhammer 40,000 Movie

The background behind this film is a shoe string budget, some real fans of the genre and a writer who is well respected in the realms of fantasy literature. So with that in mind to compare this CGI film with the best of Pixar or Avatar would be unfair as it was never going to have the same "wow" factor.

For the uninitiated it is the 41st century and the human galactic empire is at war. Humanity's front line of defence is the space marines. Genetically enhanced super soldiers utterly loyal to the emperor encased in powered armour suits with very big guns.

This is the problem because while the movie looked better than I expected the whole (rather short) film revolves around a platoon of these humourless, quasi-religious soldiers going on a very linear mission. The script may not even be 60 pages long, nobody talks in anything other than short sentences and there are far more lines like "For the Emperor!" than anything approaching character development/banter and while that's fine for action scenes, as a film it makes the whole thing seem hollow.

The action is perfectly acceptable but nothing special and the whole feel of the movie is like a group going into a haunted house and are picked of one-by-one. The fact it is CGI allows some impressive vistas, a very large mother ship and some spooky supernatural going on but while every penny is on screen, you never really care about any of the protagonists so more time should have been spent on the basics- story, characters and dialogue and little less on the tech.

Been waiting for this for a long time.... and now it's here.

The Good stuff: The voice acting was superb, everyone did a perfect job. 10/10.

Ambient music and general mood of the movie is dead on, I especially like the first minutes after landing on Mithron, the setting and mood just awesome. 9/10.

The detail of the warhammer 40k world, equipment & lore, is nearly perfect 9/10.

The Mediocre stuff: CGI and animation of characters notably melee combat was a bit awkward... maybe its just me, but it was fair for a first try 5/10.

The story... not bad, not good, a bit simple, expected a little bit more from Dan Abnett 5/10.

The Bad stuff: The Spacemarines! now I saw this with a friend of mine who has little or no knowledge of the 40k universe, and I had to explain a lot to him before and during the movie, and before the movie I told him about the spacemarines as being huge superhuman bad asses who kicks butt, whether its an army of heretics or aliens, after the movie he asked "whats so special about the spacemarines?" and to be honest I had the same feeling, you don't get the feeling they are anything special, not that I'm saying you feel like they are wimps, they just lack the Superhuman quality 3/10.

On board the Reclusiam, where are the Ultramarines serfs? who is flying the thing? are the only ones aboard the 12 Ultramarines and a couple of servitors? Here they could have put a few normal humans in, and see the Ultramarines stand head and shoulders over the tallest of the puny humans, but no instead you get a feeling that the Reclusiam is devoid of the and some computer flies the ship... 2/10 Way too short 76 mins? this is reflected in the plot of the movie which is pretty simple Buuuu! :o) I really wanted to score this high, but my personal verdict is... well 6/10 wait +1 just because it a 40k movie so final verdict 7/10.

Will I buy more 40k movies? yes! will I recommend others to buy and watch it? yes! will the fans be disappointed? no I think not :o)

ULTRAMARINES - Indeed it is. Folowing the story of a small squad out on a simple re-con and coming against harsh forces they are ill prepared for, I was expecting a highly action-packed movie.

Sadly for those who love action - You may be disappointed. This is far more atmospheric which only serves to draw you in further to the story.

It has been a long wait with many false starts on the CGI project - However it is not disappointing. The effects are excellent and the story has the right balance of suspense and action. Graphics are wonderful and there is a nice bit of gore as well which I expected given the nature of the 40K universe.

Would I recommend this film - of Course! If I have one complaint - Its a very simple one... They have proved they can make these stories work amazingly, it would be amazing to see an actual Series rather than a number of movies - However the cost of CGI makes this impossible at this time.

Will definitely be looking forward to future releases

After watching this animation, I had very conflicting feelings about it. I was a bit disappointed because it didn't work, for me, as a sci-fi movie. But then I also realized that I wasn't happy about the choice of the races portrayed, as I think the Eldar Harlequines would make for a much more visually pleasing experience. Nevertheless, as a sci-fi movie, it might not have delivered anyway.

Then I had another, retrospective, look at what the movie presented, and realized that some essential aspects of the Warhammer 40.000 universe were touched upon in a balanced way. It doesn't distract the casual viewer, and it probably wets the palate of the die-hard Warhammer 40.000 nerd. (I am neither, I just happened to study this universe for a few weeks.)

The plot is vaguely interesting, though the action suffers from tempo issues at times, which I am sure any viewer will notice and be a bit frustrated about. The action sequences range from boring to fascinating. Here, too, I have some conflicting impressions.

The characters are clichéd but one is really not expected to care much about them in a personal way. They are all warriors, and in that sense, the Warhammer 40.000 universe's flavor comes through and it probably doesn't disturb too much.

All in all, I think I could have spent these 70 minutes in worse ways, and hope most viewers will gain at least the same amount of fun as I did.

This movie is an easy 10 for long time Warhammer 40k fans like myself, but I am looking at it through the viewpoint of the average viewer for the sake of fareness.

The plot was good and was very true to the lore of the gamesworkshops Warhammer universe. While the dialogue was sometimes short one liners and cheesy, the voice acting was magnificent. Terrance stamp and John hurt offer up truly inspiring performances along with the rest of the cast. The choral and atmospheric music is very well done and they avoided using gloomy or intense mash ups of sounds clearly stating what the mood should be, telling you how to feel. The downside is that the animation is somewhat low quality CGI, although not as bad as many people make it out to be. The story grabs your attention so well that you soon forget about the low quality animation. As far as run time, 76 minutes is not ideal, but you rarely realize how short it was unit you actually inspect the clock. Lastly, this film is aimed at a very small fanbase, being us Gamesworkshops wargamers. I look forward to more Warhammer 40k films in the future and I hope that Codex Pictures continues to produce them with the same quality and attention to detail as this one.