Review: Halo Series Premiere on Paramount+

Halo began, remains and will continue to be one of the most successful and popular video-game franchises of all time. What served as the pivotal contribution towards the successful launch of Microsoft's first gaming console, the original Xbox, finally has a live-action adaptation worth your time. Thanks to the joint efforts of Paramount Pictures, Showtime, 343 Industries and Amblin Television the long time fans of this killer sci-fi franchise, as well as the undoubtedly and unmeasurable amount of new viewers, whom have never picked up a controller, will be tuning in to judge the Master Chief for themselves, despite the clamor from the internet that there is indifference amongst fan's reactions.

(TL;DR Quick & Short Review: This show is simply a blast. I wasn't expecting the brutal deaths, amount of action, cursing, great acting from almost everyone and twists and reveals to be so aplenty in this first episode. The CGI only looked off in literally one or two moments in an hour long production of beautiful and sleek CGI so don't let the comments I read before viewing dismay you from watching. I think if you enjoyed Disney+'s The Mandalorian then you'll most likely enjoy this)

After previous attempts at developing films, having many successful book series, tons of merchandise, a couple live-action lower budget mini-series like Halo: Forward Unto Dawn and of course, conquering the gaming world to begin with, whilst still putting up a good fight in a gaming world that's more competitive than ever before with their previous title for the Xbox One, Halo Infinite.

Throughout the games Master Chief is known to show little to no personality traits, which has been rumored to have contributed to why past projects have been lost in the development process and have never seen the light of day. This problem has been seemingly worked on in recent iterations of the campaigns in which you control Master Chief in the games but I have not personally played through all of them, as I'm more of a multiplayer gamer for the most part. However, I've always loved the franchise and have rooted for this moment: A moment in which any medium of media, in this case streaming television on Paramount+, would give us some true-blue personality traits and emotion from the Chief, portrayed by actor Pablo Schreiber.

Let's backtrack a bit, for those of you that haven't seen the episode before I get ahead of myself because if you're a reader of my articles than you'll see I enjoy a bit of a ramble and I'm on a keyboard this time, not my phone, so strap in, buckle up and enjoy the ride because that's exactly how I felt from start to finish while watching this series premiere on my 4k television. Imagine how it would play in the theaters. Now imagine that this is still a major possibility (Walking Dead creator Robert Kirkman's animated series Invincible on Prime Video has an upcoming & unrelated/separate live-action film coming to theaters from Seth Rogen) and join me on the hypetrain of hoping we see the Halo Universe on the big screen someday.

Without spoiling too much, the way this series premieres is on an adrenaline rush practically from the get-go. Things are calm for a second in the beginning but after things take a turn for the worse, the episode relentlessly takes the viewer on an emotional rollercoaster. I personally thought the acting was great from Kwhan Ha, played by Yerin Ha, as well as her father General Ji Ha played by Jeong-hwan Kong and some of her counterparts in the insurgent camp the fight takes place in.

Other than a literal moment or two of not-the-best looking CGI, I personally believed the rest of it looked arguably adequate and in some cases spot on, especially whenever it mattered most and I was staring intently and directly at the details in the 4k rendered CGI textures on the alien Covenant enemies while alive and killed by the Chief and his team, the deadly and stylish as ever Silver Team.

After slaying all the actually/surprisingly slightly terrifying alien monstrosities, Chief & Co. rescue the only remaining survivor, the aforementioned Kwhan. Things start to take a new direction in the episode when we begin to meet more of the crew in charge of their Space Weapon, the UNSC headed Admiral Margaret Parangosky played by Shabana Azmi and Captain Jacob Keyes played by Danny Sapani.

At this point in the episode it has become apparent that although the Spartans and the UNSC had just helped the Insurgents fight their battle against the attacking Covenant, the moment they can no longer use Kwhan to help push their agenda of trying to convince other insurgent colonies that fear the Spartans to trust them. They decide to try to use Kwhan this way by having her appear in a news broadcast type video explaining so but she refuses to take part in spreading their propaganda due to being directly affected by a group of Spartans and the Chief himself, how in which is explained as taking place before the episode and has yet to, and may never, be shown in flashback style. With the aide of having touched a mysterious relic found on the planet Madrigal, the Chief had entered a trance like state where he began to see the woods, a white dog and feel a presence of family around him.  He soon after realizes that although Kwhan belongs to a group that was his enemy before the new alien threat arrived and for no known reason began killing everyone, he himself had been used as a weapon to kill family members of Kwhan that posed no true threat, while also dealing with the new command from the UNSC Headquarters on the planet Reach to carry out an Article 72 aka murder the one person explaining to him that he's nothing but their weapon, their killing machine in the exact moment he's also having flashbacks to hidden memories he previously never had.

The trust between Chief and the UNSC had began to wain on both ends of the stick after he tells Dr. Halsey, the doctor in charge of the Spartan Program and played by Natascha McElhone, about his forgotten or subdued memories. When his leaders realize he's taking too long to commit murder on his captive-turned-friend, they attempt to intervene by triggering gas to fill the auto-piloted ship with the Chief and Kwhan inside but are not successful. When Kwhan comes to, she finds a Burst-Fire Battle-Rifle or BR and aims it at M.C. in a brief stand-off in which we all know who would win and he explains so in that his armor is made of reinforced titanium and how she "wouldn't even dent it." However, something she can more than dent is his bare face and head so with everything crashing down around the Master Chief that he had formerly known to be true and standing in front of the one person helping him understand what he truly is, he decides to be vulnerable and although I had been spoiled, I was still surprised in the moment to see the Chief remove his helmet and explain that he did not know why he was helping her, but the viewer knows it's because of everything we just witnessed.

This all culminates in a stand-off between the UNSC and the Master Chief with the Silver Team directed by Dr. Halsey to defend the Chief from anyone attempting to harm him. An elaborate, and albeit almost too elaborate and extended scene of the extremely badass looking UNSC preparing for battle around the ship as it approaches the headquarters. Things seem to be about to go more than bad for everyone involved and right at the exact moment things are about to pop off the Chief touches the relic one more time, after previously being directed not to by Dr. Halsey, and an enormous EMP-like blast shoots across the UNSC colony on Reach while also causing the previously disabled-on-arrival ship the Chief is in to be powered up by an extremely familiar hue of blue before they take off into the stars. (That blue hue, for you few reading that have never played the games, will be explained in the next episode I'm assuming and is even mentioned by name briefly in this episode for fans that know what I'm alluding too)

I can't wait to see where this series takes us and our now two heroes. The stakes are set and the mysteries are here in abundance. The lore is a mix of elements from the games and book series with a dash of their own and I'm still wondering why I saw articles proclaiming fans have "mixed-feelings" about this first episode because for a streaming service series this hits the mark and then some. I believe what some are wanting is a film quality version of the series like Disney+ can afford to do with The Mandalorian but like I already said, that may just be on the horizon in the form of a full-length film someday.

Watch new episodes of Halo the series on Paramount+ every Thursday!

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Jordan Bushert

Entertainment Journalist

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