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If Yakface says it'd good, it must be true.

Am. Want.

Wow, hadn't seen the graphic novel yet.
I completely understand that codex had to balance costs and quality but IF they were going to do a comic they might as well have had it done by a decent artist.
Cheap blobby inking without any detail and that captain seems to be holding a giant sausage.

Thanks for the review!

Nice review

I must admit, that special edition package looks pretty nice! I might have to take a closer look at this thing. Thanks for the review!

The movie looks awsome and i am getting it (ordered it like the first week you could) but a thing when he commented about the old space marines, there are some, like the ultra marines special chaplain, cant recall name, it jus shows it takes a &*!& ton of time before they show signs of ageing. but it is a little dissapointing about non-exploding bolt rounds... oh well.

It will be intriguing to see how this film is broadly reviewed and accepted by the community, if only because I am partially worried and certain that it will be blasted by people for its supposed inaccuracies and being "dumbed down" for mass audiences. That said, I do have to wonder if anyone else who was exposed to just the games, both the tabletop and video-, are surprised by how easy the Marines are killed? In most games I play, it does seem like "everyone" gets thrown in the meat grinder. It is to the point that I'm genuinely surprised that the fluff speaks of the Marines being stalwart and long-living, as they do seem to drop like armored flies, though they usually take out a few unarmored xeno-flies before they kick the bucket.

Hi all, has anyone else in the UK had the emails all last week from Codex Pics about the 'problems beyond our control' meaning that they couldn't ship the movie on the release date?

Fingers crossed that they arrive in the UK from tomorrow as they've promised. :(

I ordered my copy right away, thankfully! Yakface did an excellent job of settings people's expectations with this movie. The point is, it's a first time effort, with a tiny budget, and to keep expectations in check. I, for one, don't expect a 300 quality movie out of it, and am commited to encouraging people to buy it, for the sake of seeing more be released.

I'm not condoning people releasing shoddy products in the name of making money off of our beloved franchise, but there needs to be due consideration for the future of the franchise and supporting it is key to seeing more! If you're a 40K tightwad like myself, make an exception, and order this movie for yourself, and for all the other fans out there! Order this movie!

Meh.

Here's my problem.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-E1RcRvny8

That was made in...2004. I need not remind anyone what graphics capabilities were back then. With a small budget. There is no excuse for poor rendering, a mediocre plot, failing to capture the spirit of space marines....from our reading, we KNOW Space Marines have deep, imposing, and commanding voices. There's no excuse for giving us prissy british actor voices.

Nothing about the movie feels remotely adequate, let alone well done.

Dashofpepper wrote:Meh.

Here's my problem.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-E1RcRvny8

That was made in...2004. I need not remind anyone what graphics capabilities were back then. With a small budget. There is no excuse for poor rendering, a mediocre plot, failing to capture the spirit of space marines....from our reading, we KNOW Space Marines have deep, imposing, and commanding voices. There's no excuse for giving us prissy british actor voices.

Nothing about the movie feels remotely adequate, let alone well done.

Actually, I guarantee that 2 minute DOW short cost millions to make. It was made by BLUR studios (IIRC) and like most fully CGI animated cut scenes in video games it is done outside of the studio that is making the game by a company that specializes in CGI animation. So yes, regardless of if that was made in 2004, the budget is WAY over what can be done for a 70 minute 40K movie.

And yes, because of the advance of technology there is a lot of stuff in the Ultramarines movie that is better looking in many ways than that DOW cut scene.

So as I said in my review, trying to compare that DOW cut-scene to the Ultramarines movie is like trying to compare a summer blockbuster with a $200 million budget to an independent film with a $10 million budget.

The Ultramarines movie is great for what it is, and deserves your money.

Money given! Product still not received. :/ And, unlike others, I've had no "it shipped!" e-mail. Not that I think this will leave a bad enough taste for people not to buy the next (fingers crossed) one or even regret purchasing this one . . . at least, once it arrives if it arrives sooner rather than later. Still, poor show. I had forgiven the graphics, prepared myself for bottom-of-the-barrell BL writing, and sunk into deep denial over geriatric Space Marines . . . and now that my long-ago-preordered prize is still missing with no sure sign of being on its way . . . well, I think I've given this as much of a chance as I possibly can.

I have to agree and respectfully disagree Yakface.

The dawn of war trailer may have been cost prohibitive for a full movie. However I have seen plenty of niche anime with better CGI.

However, there was absolutely NOTHING in Ultramarines that was better than the DOW trailer - not even close.

These are, however my opinion. Please feel fee to share what you thought was better. I would love to like this movie.
- Jake

I just wanted to say that Yak's review put me over the top. I ordered this as a Christmas present for a non-gamer friend who once said he used to play Ultramarines in junior high and would love to play again if he ever finds the time.

Here are my thoughts after reading the graphic novel and watching the film at a friend's place. *SPOILER ALERT*

The CGI really isn't all that great,which everybody has known for forever. That said,it was about as good or maybe slightly better than my expectations after watching the trailer.

The big problem is,though,that if the CGI isn't top notch,then much more detail and attention has to be put into the plot and characters,and the Ultramarines movie failed miserably in both regards. We were told that Codex Pictures was suppossed to be remaining true to the source material,but yet I was left having to suspend disbelief on a number of occassions.

Per the Graphic Novel prologue,a key Hive world has been infested with Genestealers. 2nd Company is already on planet,and 3rd Company is also being called in to effectively deal with the infestation. Ultima Squad gets wiped out except for one member,and members of a Scout squad are promoted to renumber it. Captain Severus,then,inexplicably,decides to take the freshly promoted squad out on a Battle Barge to investigate the shrine world. The fact that he's commandeered an entire battle barge to transport a single squad of troops and the fact that somehow the Ultramarines are the only reinforcements within 6 weeks travel time despite the planet being in Imperial Fists space aside,no Company Captain is going to personally leave a campaign on a key hive world to investigate a world going silent,and they certainly aren't going to bring an Apothecary WITH them to do it. Yeah,he may send a squad to check it out,but he's not going personally. I believe they wrote the graphic novel extra with the intention of filling in the gaping plot hole in the movie as to why there is only a single squad being sent to check out the planet,and it only succeeds and opening up more gaping plot holes.

That aside,the characters are very flat. At no point did I ever really identify or begin to care about any of them,which is a key component in any movie. There is a very generic and unimaginative rivalry between Proteus and another Battle Brother where each is trying to prove themself superior,but other than that,Ultima squad is pretty much reduced to a bunch of nameless,faceless nobodies. Only the Captain and the somewhat whiny Apothecary seem to stand out at all. This is unforgivable,seeing as how Ultima squad spends pretty much the first half of the movie walking. If you're going to have that much down time in a movie like this,then you need to utilize it properly,and this movie fails horribly.

After snoozing your way through the first half of the flick,Ultima squad finally starts to see some action. However,they are not the superhuman Angels of Death we all know and love from the games and the novels. Astartes Power Armor is no more effective in the Ultramarines movie than Stormtrooper armor is in the Star Wars movies or Imperial Guard Flak Armor is in the tabletop game. In a nutshell,if an Ultramarine gets hit with a bolter,he dies. No fighting through grievous wounds,no rounds bouncing off Adamantine...just...dead. Even in tabletop,a bolter round gets a killshot 1 time out of every 6 hits. The Ultramarines are reduced to wussies in giant blue smurf outfits,which is obviously not what they're suppossed to be. Codex Pictures was suppossed be remaining true to the source material,but somebody needs to tell them if/when they get the rights to do another 40k film that it means a whole lot more than just not forcing in a female love interest and a couple of shouts of "The Emperor Protects." In means that you have to present the star attractions,the Ultramarines in this case,as the superhuman killing machines they are,not jamooks in blue suits that die like redshirts in a Captain Kirk away team. The movie plods along predictably until a slight plot twist at the end.

Much has been made about the voice acting in this film,and honestly,it's ok,but nowhere near as good as many people have made it out to be. The different voice actors somewhat mull together and with the lower quality animation,it makes it difficult to figure out which Ultramarine is which. That said,the voice acting is still probably the high point in this movie,and the raves about it are probably due to the fact that the rest of the film is so badly done.

Ultimately,here is what you have with this movie. It's badly written,flat out. It has very flat and 2D characters. It has below par animation. It has decent voice acting. It IS about Ultramarines and 40K. If you're enough of a fanboy to forgive this film it's many faults,then there is probably enough here to justify a rental. If you're going to drop your hard earned coin on buying this movie,then you are basically doing it under the hopes that the movie will sell well enough that Codex Pictures can do another one,and hopefully do it a whole lot better the second time around.

Whatever1 wrote: <Insert Review Here>

This review is the first accurate review on the movie I have seen so far. Majority of the reviews I have seen so far have been done from a fairly biased/fanboyish perspective (and sorry to say this but this includes yakface’s review above).

I watched this movie this morning and it is a genuinely good movie. Not awesome, poor animation and the not very
mysterious mystery that is the story preven that.

The twist at the end makes for an interesting and exciting end to the movie.

If you are going into this movie expecting awesome then you will be disapointed. But if you go in with an open mind
you will enjoy it and you will find yourself smiling during the suitably bloody action scenes (although they are few and far
between they are credible and exciting).

Overall good film.
Just my opinion.

Whatever1 - I agree with all your good review, which like candy.man said is the first accurate one I've read. My thoughts are as below:

***SPOILERS***

The first thing you notice is that the shrine world where the Ultramarines are being sent to *was* defended by an entire company of Imperial Fists... that's 100 Space Marines with ancillaries... yet a weathered Captain, whiney Apothecary and ten newly promoted scouts are being dispatched to find out what happened? O-K then... And why take an entire battlebarge and only use 12 men and a landspeeder? Where is the analysis of the situation? The main bloke is certainly no Uriel Ventris that's for sure.

The Ultramarines are meant to be the quintessential Space Marines, yet in the film they argue and question direct orders on at least one occasion, and even discount their battle brothers word when Proteus claims to have seen things. Ultramarines do everything by the book and do not question or disobey orders, yet these miscreants are almost rebellious at times. Also they do not converse in battle cant and can't even maintain fire discipline. What is with that?

Why do they walk everywhere? Space Marines are meant to be able to run flat out for days and yet our intrepid new marines just trot along (rather disjointedly) with no sense of urgency at all.

The point Yakface made about the aged faces of the marines is a good one in that they *all* looked either old or very old, with only the odd facial feature distinguishing them. Not true to canon in my opinion as we know they can live for hundreds of years with very minimal signs of it.

As is noted by Whatever1, the Ultramarines die almost every time they are hit, and this again goes against 40k lore because it reduces them just lackeys in blue suits that stand out like a sore thumb. We don't see any of their famed resilience or feats of superhuman ability that we know they are capable of.

With regard to the enemy, the Chaos Marines seem possessed by bad AI in that they have no strategy, are hardly able to shoot and just swarm Tyranid-style towards their foe whilst being happily mown down as they go! They do not get to be 10,000 years old if they fight like that and it's a wonder any are left at all!

The Imperial Fist Chaplain is meant to be a pillar of mental strength and a seeker of heresy, yet I doubt even he could even fight his way out of a wet paper bag with scissors in his hands, not to mention the FAIL that was not rooting out the taint right in front of him.

And lastly...

***BIG SPOILER***

What is with a Captain being possessed so quickly and easily by Chaos? Sorry but this is not believable at all. Overall I think the Ultramarines must have skipped Codex 101 and gone straight to play for Team Fail.

Despite all of this, the film was mildly entertaining, but perhaps not entertaining enough for me to also shell out for the next one (assuming there will be one).

Hopefully someone at Codex pictures will read feedback and GW can write a more plausible story...

LoyalViggo wrote:
The Imperial Fist Chaplain is meant to be a pillar of mental strength and a seeker of heresy, yet I doubt even he could even fight his way out of a wet paper bag with scissors in his hands, not to mention the FAIL that was not rooting out the taint right in front of him.

What taint was right in front of him? I must have missed that...

LoyalViggo wrote:
What is with a Captain being possessed so quickly and easily by Chaos?

The captain was dead before the deamon took his form.

Just saying but the other points that you made i cannot argue with.

***SPOILERS***

Cadian512, with regard to the taint, that of the returned daemon which had possessed the Captain. The film leads you to believe he was possessed, for *it* still adopts the mannerisms, speech patterns and has knowledge specific to the Captain, ie his squad mates names, which could not be achieved if he was dead and the corpse simply inhabited by a daemon.

So in this capacity, the Chaplains failure was the inability to detect the taint within such close proximity to the daemon, when there were telling indicators, for example the banner spontaneously erupting in warp fire.

As for adopting the form of the Captain? If daemon's could do that why don't they always do it? why not all change into an army of Astartes? Maybe I'm wrong, and maybe stranger things happen in the warp, but the only force of chaos I know which can animate or possess a corpse is Nurgle (and which would of course be easily detected).

But animate an intact corpse with intact power armour and weaponry and completely fooling those under his command?

Nope.

Using the above criteria the logical conclusion I extrapolated (and which I believe the film intends, but hey it's my interpretation) is that the Captain is possessed but within his mind still, much like Fulgrim in the Horus Heresy novel that bears his name.

The animated corpse option has even less traction than the possessed Captain, which for me is still very weak.

I do however respect that people interpret things differently.

Well at least you explained it rather than simply shouting me down like so many others
do on this site so thank you.

Having just watched this - it was bloody terrible. I had low expectations for a straight-to-dvd movie and it came in well below them. The animation is terrible, not just in detail but in motion - everyone walks like they have a stick up their ass.

The plot/pacing are wretched. The first half of the movie is just the squad walking ominously. Seriously. You can't tell one character from another there's a sgt, a guy with a banner and a apothocary. They all look alike, even with helmets off and the rest of the marines are faceless/nameless bodies. (they actually have names, but it won't do you any good in identifying them.) The enemy is worse - we never meet/see them really. They just ran straight from the ever-present fog and die in droves to bolter fire. (I think the fog was there to keep animation costs down). The movie had about a half-hours worth of story but dragged on for another 45 minutes beyond that. It's all very low-stakes too. Only in the last 5 minutes of movie do we learn their might be some real danger to anything but our squad.

The voice acting is what you expect - all very monotone vaguely British sounding gruff voices. I couldn't pick out the "big names" from the rest of the crowd.

I really had a hard time paying attention it was all so dull. The plot/va/hell even the intro animation were all light years better in DOW II. I wouldn't buy Ultramarines, and unless you have a thing for bad movies I wouldn't rent it either. It's not worth $3 and 75 minutes of your time.

Well, I just finished it. Just gut reactions, no in depth review;


************SPOILERS******************






The Bad :(

Ultrarmarines are YAAWWWNTASTIC

I didn't dig the whole "Dawn of the Dead running zombie" deal with the CSM. Here they had a chance to add real flavor (Since they had the boring boys in blue as the good guys). It seems turning to chaos makes you mindless, screaming, running whelps that Ultramarine Novices can put down in droves. Really didn't like that and just ruined the action for me.

First half was pretty boring and if it was meant for character setup, it failed. A lot of walking worked in Lord of the Rings because they fleshed out the characters...here not so much.

Their eyes bothered me. Every time they took off their helmets, I kept thinking how their eyes seemed to float around in their sockets. Can't really explain it but you'll see it when you watch it.

"I think I saw something!"....."It's just your nerves...and oh yeah WE SHALL KNOW NO FEAR". That was worth a chuckle.

"My Crozius Arcanum needs to recharge!" I think someone got lost in translation here to the animation department when they stated "It has a power field". It become a Ghostbuster power pack...thingy.




The Good

Animation overall...was pretty damn decent! Some funny movements once in awhile...but pretty damn good!

It was grimdark and gory. Yes, keep doing that Codex.

Good twist.

Daemon speed/movement was pretty cool and I liked the lighting. Good atmosphere!

Just to add that again because I really liked it...the lighting was terrific. Ominous and matched the story.

Voice acting was A-List and terrific.

Dialogue had weak moments...but I was expecting more cringe worthy lines. Not too shabby.







I hope Codex has sank enough time/money into getting the 3d structures down....so their next installment will have even more polish. I'm very optimistic considering how all of the models needed to be made from scratch, etc. Hope there's another one (With no Ultramarines).

Some of you Must have seen a different movie than I did. My only major disappointment is not seeing the Multimelta fire. If you detractors can make a 40k movie for the same amount and with better quality go for it. The film was made on a very low budget for a animated movie. The shorts that pixar does before there main movies cost more than you think to make and they are only minutes long.
and yak the guy in white is an apothacary not a chaplain my opinion is this and a half

I'm with Yak & AgeofEgos.

Not really a good movie, but had some high points (like the actors), and was a bunch of fun to watch with buddies and MST3K with.

Ha, the crozius cracked me up. I didn't get a ghostbusters feel, but I did get a "A chaplain is a cleric right? Clerics can turn undead.....and these chaos marines are pretty mindless...ergo"

lol

I watched this movie, I had a decent go of it. I wouldn't spend a dollar owning this, but I would not turn it away as a gift...I would not watch it again,

Spoiler:

First of all 12 marines on a battle barge...fail, marines that have never seen combat...I guess they were never scouts...fail.

laborious walking scenes when we could have just lost that 15 minutes and been fine...fail.


I'd rather a space marine movie be a splice of the DOW or DOW2 cutscenes,

sonofruss wrote:Some of you Must have seen a different movie than I did. My only major disappointment is not seeing the Multimelta fire. If you detractors can make a 40k movie for the same amount and with better quality go for it. The film was made on a very low budget for a animated movie. The shorts that pixar does before there main movies cost more than you think to make and they are only minutes long.
and yak the guy in white is an apothacary not a chaplain my opinion is this and a half

It's possible to do a good film on a low budget. Some of my favorite films,like Night of the Living Dead,Resevoir Dogs,Clerks,and Lock,Stock,and Two Smoking Barrels were extremely low budget. I don't think most of us expected top notch CGI,especially after seeing the trailers. However,as I said in my review,if the CGI isn't going to be top notch,then much more attention needs to be paid to character development,the storyline,and staying true to the fluff,and this movie failed on all accounts. I realize CGI costs money,however having a good script that stays true to the fluff could have definately made Ultramarines a solid-good movie and costs nearly nothing on the front end. Could I have written a better script for this movie? Sadly,yeah. Heck,Codex Pictures would have been better off IMO if they had converted one of the prewritten adventure modules for Deathwatch into a screenplay for this movie. The Deathwatch PDF intro adventure would have been almost perfect,except script doctor it to be Ultramarines instead of Deathwatch.

Secondly,the low budget is not an excuse for a poor product when you are putting it on the mass market. Uwe Boll works with low budgets,but nobody makes excuses for his awful movies because of it. Why should that be the case with Ultramarines? The low budget MIGHT be able to be excused if due to the low budget,the cost of the movie was greatly discounted over that of a normal DVD,say to the $5-10 dollar range. A typical DVD with bonus features here in the states runs about $20. Ultramarines is $39.98 US. So you're basically saying that I should pay TWICE what a normal DVD for an 1-1/2 to 2 hour movie costs for a 70 minute movie(of which about 30 minutes is just filler to make up time),then not complain about the quality because it was done on such a low budget? So,Codex Pictures feels it's fair to charge more,but deliver less than their competition? The low budget excuse goes totally out the window when you're charging twice as much as your competition.

I just saw this movie tonight.

As yak said, if you go into this movie with unrealistic expectations then you will be disappointed. Overall it was a good watch. Some nice action scenes and a decent plot. IMO the graphics are not as bad as people make them out to be. No this isn't pixar studios, but for the budget they had it was alright. I encourage everyone to see it!

Now for the whole going into battle for the first time as Ultramarines line. I believe he meant as full battle brothers. Still kind of funny though.

My biggest gripe was how their armor didn't really seem to help them much. I wanted to see some intense firefights with bullets pinging off armor and such.

Whatever1 wrote:

sonofruss wrote:Some of you Must have seen a different movie than I did. My only major disappointment is not seeing the Multimelta fire. If you detractors can make a 40k movie for the same amount and with better quality go for it. The film was made on a very low budget for a animated movie. The shorts that pixar does before there main movies cost more than you think to make and they are only minutes long.
and yak the guy in white is an apothacary not a chaplain my opinion is this and a half

It's possible to do a good film on a low budget. Some of my favorite films,like Night of the Living Dead,Resevoir Dogs,Clerks,and Lock,Stock,and Two Smoking Barrels were extremely low budget. I don't think most of us expected top notch CGI,especially after seeing the trailers. However,as I said in my review,if the CGI isn't going to be top notch,then much more attention needs to be paid to character development,the storyline,and staying true to the fluff,and this movie failed on all accounts. I realize CGI costs money,however having a good script that stays true to the fluff could have definately made Ultramarines a solid-good movie and costs nearly nothing on the front end. Could I have written a better script for this movie? Sadly,yeah. Heck,Codex Pictures would have been better off IMO if they had converted one of the prewritten adventure modules for Deathwatch into a screenplay for this movie. The Deathwatch PDF intro adventure would have been almost perfect,except script doctor it to be Ultramarines instead of Deathwatch.

Secondly,the low budget is not an excuse for a poor product when you are putting it on the mass market. Uwe Boll works with low budgets,but nobody makes excuses for his awful movies because of it. Why should that be the case with Ultramarines? The low budget MIGHT be able to be excused if due to the low budget,the cost of the movie was greatly discounted over that of a normal DVD,say to the $5-10 dollar range. A typical DVD with bonus features here in the states runs about $20. Ultramarines is $39.98 US. So you're basically saying that I should pay TWICE what a normal DVD for an 1-1/2 to 2 hour movie costs for a 70 minute movie(of which about 30 minutes is just filler to make up time),then not complain about the quality because it was done on such a low budget? So,Codex Pictures feels it's fair to charge more,but deliver less than their competition? The low budget excuse goes totally out the window when you're charging twice as much as your competition.

The cost of the film is because There was no financial help from anybody but codex pictures they are trying to recoup their investment and have a surplus for the next one if possible as to the low budget films none of them are CGI so the comparisons are out the window ask the guy that tried to make Blood Quest he is on dakka How much was sunk in to the movie they made before it went bust then you can compare them.