Halo: Nightfall DVD and Blu-ray Review

3 stars for this decent sci-fi game crossover. 

With a couple of sci-fi heavyweights at the helm in the form of director Sergio Mimica-Gezzan (Battlestar Galactica) and executive producer Ridley Scott (Alien, Blade Runner), Halo: Nightfall always had a good chance of being a half decent film.

It is written by Paul Scheuring (Klondike, Zero Hour) and is the latest offering from the powerhouse that is Halo, an Xbox game franchise that has gradually been trying to take over the world for the last few years.

This latest edition introduces Agent Locke (Mike Colter – Zero Dark Thirty, Salt), set to be the protagonist in the next Halo game, Halo 5: Guardians.

Originally shown as a series of 5 episodes, Halo: Nightfall has now been presented as a single film, and seems to work perfectly well in that format. As a series I think I may well have lost patience half way through.

Although heavily based on the game franchise, I haven’t played any of them and I found everything to be adequately explained, so that it functions well enough as a stand alone feature.

While investigating terrorist activity on the remote colony world of Sedra, Agent Locke and his team of ONI agents are caught in an explosion. When it turns out that a new element has been discovered, one that is extremely dangerous to humans but no other creatures, they must track down the source of this potentially species ending threat.

Along with a team from the Sedran Colonial Guard, lead by Colonel Aiken (Steven Waddington – The Imitation Game, The Hole), they head to the source of the new element, a fragment of the Halo ring, where the intense heat of the explosion has caused all sorts of strange effects.

On a time limit until the sun comes up and faced with many unexpected difficulties, Locke and Aiken must try to get their teams to work together, in order to stop the bounty hunters from collecting more of the element, and to nuke the source so no-one else can ever get their hands on it.

Although the script isn’t particularly strong, the acting is pretty good and they do well with what they have. The story is interesting and the special effects are quite impressive in places, especially the worms on the Halo ring, which add a nice twist to the tale.

It will never set the world on fire, but for a film based on a game franchise, it is very good and considerably better than some other recent sci-fi efforts. Perfect for a night in front of the TV with some popcorn.

Halo: Nightfall is available to buy on DVD, Blu-ray and Collectors Edition Blu-ray on 16th March 2015.