The following will be a review of the Ultramarines movie as I perceived it. I'm going to break it down in to the Good, the Bad, and the Confusing. However this review WILL contain spoilers.
The Good: First off the collectors set is beautifully done. It is sturdy and doesn't feel cheap at all. I got the feeling that I got my moneys worth. The movie itself was about what I expected. The plot was above average and the animation was good. There were a few moments of cinematography that were really well done and pleasing to the eye. A couple examples would be when the heavy bolter marine is firing on the chaos infested tower and they do a slow-mo close up of the heavy bolter casing with "Kill the Heretic" engraved on it. The animation on the chaos marines was also really well done. The animation and sound of the landspeeder was very cool...almost like a bad ass turbo deisel engine. The atmosphere of the story was also suitable creepy. Overall I feel like it was worth the price of admission and I am glad that I own the collectors edition. For a first effort, it exceeded my personal expecations. I hope that it is successful enough for Codex pictures to do more.
The Bad: Alright here we go. I expected for there to be groan inducing moments and there were. In case you ever wondered whether or not space marines know any fear....there will be no doubt by the time you are done with this move. They ritualistically recite "And we shall know no fear!" way more times than is necessary and by the end it seems pretty lame. I realize that the budget was limited and they had to choose where to put their attention. It shows in certain parts of the animation. It seemed like to me that the same character would sometimes not look the same from scene to scene. Now this next part I'm not sure about. I don't know if the word "taint" has a different slang interpretation in England but there is a scene regarding sniffing out the taint of Chaos which is snicker inducing and pretty much sucks the credibility out of the scene.
The Confusing: Again, I think most of these points are because of budget constraints. When you have an entire Ultramarines battle barge sent to investigate a distress signal, why do you send 1 whole tactical squad and 1 whole land speeder to the planets surface. Seems a little stingy to me. Not only that, but you load them onto a Thunderhawk. Doesn't a Thunderhawk hold 30 marines?? Hmm. And where the heck are the rest of the marines? In the final battle with the demon on the ship, where are the rest of the space marines? This entire battle barge only has 10 or 12 marines on it? Not one single guy with a powerfist? Maybe it's just me but I couldn't shake the feeling that Samuel L. Jackson was going to jump out from behind a column and yell "I'm tired of theses mother****ing demons on this mother****ing plane!!"
Summary: At any rate, I would give this movie 3 out of 5 stars. If you are a fan of 40k, I think it is a must buy. It is not without flaws but for a first effort it is definitely above average and deserves a once over. The best thing I can hope for is that this movie does well enough for there to be another 40k movie and then Codex Pictures can hopefully iron out the rough patches.
