I sat down to watch this movie with no expectations, except I knew that this was something many people had been waiting a long time for.

And the verdict? Well, to be bluntly honest, a lukewarm experience at best.

The good parts of "Ultramarines" was that the CGI was really good, it looked very nice and had so many small and fine details. The scenery was amazing, again with lots of effort put into the finer details. And that is something that I like. The details on the armors, vehicles, weapons and surroundings was just awesome. However, the faces of the marines could have been made better. They sort of reminded me of PC games from the early to mid 2000's, trying to appear real but oh so obviously computer made.

Now, having said the CGI was amazing, the animation itself, well it looked clumsy and awkward at best. The way the characters and enemies were moving about looked like marionettes being pulled by strings. The way they moved and fought just looked so forced and, well, bad actually.

The story was, well I shall try to say this without yawning, uneventful and dull. There was a good pace to the story though, I will give it that much. But wow, after the movie was finished I sat with an empty feeling of having been sort of cheated out of a movie experience. Because this movie will vanish into oblivion so fast. There was potential at points in the movie, but it just failed to establish itself into more than small sparks. There were no fire fueling the movie, just small sparks.

One of the better parts about the movie, was actually the voice acting. And they actually had a handful of rather good names on the cast list; Terence Kemp, John Hurt and Sean Pertwee, just to mention a few.

I used to play Warhammer 40K, Space Crusade and Space Hulk when I was younger, so it was actually nice to see the Warhammer 40,000 world being brought to life, and the end result wasn't too shabby. It was just pulled down, way down, by a lack of interesting story and awkward and rigid animation.

For me, this is not a movie I will be returning to ever again. It just had enough worth for a single watching. But I am sure that die-hard fans of the Warhammer 40K game and universe might find the movie to have just that. This wasn't one of the top notch animated movies to make it out of 2010.

The problem with almost all the movies inspired in video-games is that most of them are boring, poorly made and, the worst part of it, don't have anything to do with the games in which those films were inspired in first place.

That's why I'm glad to see that "Ultramarines" is not that kind of film. Sure, the plot is kinda basic, the animation is somewhat stiff (Not to mention that the characters are practically expressionless) but at least, this movie had the heart in the right place: In other words, at least this film have something to with the universe of Warhammer 40000, and it's not like most of Hollywood movies inspired in video-games, that are filled with lots of stupid stuff, like an annoying comic relief, bland and stereotyped characters, dumb lines and horrible soundtracks...Fortunately, there is absolutely nothing on that in this, being focused in the action and in the characters.

Even when the CGI isn't very impressive and the first part of the story is pretty slow (Very slow) it still much better than things such as "Halo Legends" or "Dante's Inferno: An animated epic". And of course, it is much better than the atrocities made by Uwe Boll and Paul W.S. Anderson.

6/10

For me, as a 40K fan and an avid commander of Space Marines on the tabletop, this was a decent first outing for GW. It could've been better, but for what we got, it could've also been a lot worse.

The voice acting is great. I usually don't like it when movies, especially lower-budget ones, cast celebrity actors in place of professional voice actors, but most of the celebrity actors they got were pretty well picked. Terence Stamp and John Hurt are always great, so I can't complain. I haven't viewed much of Sean Pertwee's work, but here he's also pretty good. In fact, this is one movie where I never disconnected the celebrity voices from the characters.

The characters themselves weren't very memorable. The Ultramarines (both the Chapter and characters) lack any defining traits to make them stand out, and a Chapter like the Raven Guard or the Space Wolves probably would've been more interesting and/or fun. Also,the Space Marines not nearly as indestructible as they are portrayed in the tabletop game or in the lore. These are the guys who, after having their heart and both lungs stop working, can take off their armor and swallow poison while UNDERWATER and still get back to the fight after a quick dust- off. Here, their armor breaks like glass and a single bolt round to the chest kills them outright. Space Marines should be tougher than this, and that goes for their evil counterparts, too, along with that Daemon Prince. A DAEMON PRINCE SHOULD'VE WIPED THEM OUT, FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!

The story was... Underwhelming. Dan Abnett's not my favorite Black Library author , but he can still deliver a solid story. The story he gave us here was essentially just a fetch quest with a twist thrown in towards the end, which wouldn't bother me if the characters a bit more memorable. This problem could probably be fixed by a larger budget and a second writer. *cough* Graham McNeille *cough*

The animation and character designs are pretty "bleh". The attention to detail with the miniatures and video games makes the movie look like a college student's final project. The animation's not always fluid and the dust storm that's in a good chunk of the movie's fight scenes feels like a weak attempt to hide this from the audience. But, again, the Warhammer 40,000 universe has yet to get the big-budget treatment it deserves.

So, is this a good movie? No. Did I enjoy it? Eh, not really. Do I want a sequel? YEEEEESSS. So hop to it, Games Workshop, and this time get a studio to fund and distribute it theatrically. I'm sure Warner Bros or New Line would be breaking your door down.