Mass Effect: Paragon Lost (2012)

Oh. Right. Because of the money.If you've read the other reviews, you know the plot, so I"m not gonna rehash that. Space Cowboy tries to save the world, fails, manages to save the girl instead, and in the process saves the universe...... to which I say, "Huh?"OK, let's start with the animation: it's cheap and cheezy, even by Funimation standards. I've only seen a few of their films, but the others had at least some pretension of knowing what a human body looks like. The character designers here seem to have gotten their inspirations from fun-house mirrors, with impossible elongated torsos and teeny little heads.The mix of CG and cel didn't work for even a second. As for the backgrounds... well, the less said about those, perhaps the better.The story? Well, in the extras, one of the producers points out that he and someone else kept a file of scenes from films they both enjoyed, and after watching this... well, pastiche... I can see why they followed the dictum of only stealing from the best. A little Star Wars here, a little Blade Runner there, some Alien over there, a whole whack of Starship Troopers over there... you get the idea. There's not a single original concept to be found anywhere, just a hopeless mishmash of other people's films.The direction? Similarly dreadful. The voicing seems to come straight out of Acting 102, while the visual style relies way too much on full profile shots of clenched jaws and sad, somber eyes. Some of the action scenes are little more than a series of explosions, followed by a couple of the main characters congratulating themselves on surviving. Cut through it all, I probably should have stopped a half hour in, as I was tempted to. But I stuck it out just to see where it was going. As it turned out, nowhere all that important.

So, let me start out by saying I'm a Mass Effect fan. I've played all the games and I count the series as one of the best interactive gaming experiences going.So, quite what Electronic Arts were thinking when they farmed out this movie concept to Funimation is beyond me. I'm not even sure if they even had a target demographic beyond "Mass Effect fans".The animation and artwork is of poor quality, really. Certainly sub-par for a franchise like Mass Effect. I can only guess Funimation did this on the cheap. There are some scenes - shuttle flights etc, where the animation is much, much better than that used on the characters, which is a little puzzling.Whatever happened, the animation is uneven, jerky, and very much in the (entirely inappropriate) style of anime that characterizes much of Japanese animation. And old style anime, too, not the more modern style.This makes the movie hard to watch. I had it on in the background whilst I was doing other things, and that helped a lot. Listening, with the occasional glance up at the screen, made it seem better than if I plonked myself down in front of the screen and watched avidly.Voice acting is somewhere between poor and acceptable. The same actor voices Vega in this movie as did the voice work for the game (ME3), but I really couldn't tell it was him until the credits rolled, so make of that what you will.Plotwise, the story is set between the events of ME1 and ME2, with the story being a rehash of some of the events of ME2, involving the Collectors and such. It's relatively simple and, for the most part, does its job competently.However, it is formulaic and would be forgotten if not for its one saving grace - the ending.Having sat through an hour and a half of poorly animated film, our hero (James Vega) is faced with an impossible choice. A personal no-win scenario that even Kirk would blink uncertainly at. Save the hundreds of colonists, or save the girl with the information that could turn the tide of battle. He can't do both, seemingly. I admit, I expected some miraculous macguffin, or Deus Ex Machina to allow both, but, to its eternal credit, this story doesn't let that happen. Vega makes his choice, sacrificing the colonists so that the information the girl has can be utilized.And that brings me to the delicious irony of this story.Those that have followed the Mass Effect games already know about the terrible ending that was foisted off on the fans at the end of ME3. The game itself was reasonable, but the ending sucked. With Paragon Lost, the movie as a whole was weak but it was redeemed by the no-win ending to a great degree. Looking at the writer of this movie, who had nothing to do with ME3, I'm forced to wonder what sort of ending he might have come up with for the game series. It seems he knows what he's doing in that regard.Anyway, irony aside, Paragon Lost is a poor movie, mostly down to the bad animation and some dodgy voice work. It's worth seeing it once, if you are a fan of Mass Effect, but it won't be on anyone's rewatch list. If you hated ME3's endings, stick with ME:PL until the bitter-sweet end and wonder what might have been.SUMMARY: Terribly ironic addition to the Mass Effect universe, marred by shoddy animation and dodgy voice acting. It does have a good ending (at least in my book!) which redeems it somewhat, but it will never be watched more than once.

I'm not a "fan" of the Mass Effects games, although I did play the second one all the way through. The third one seems to have gotten mixed reviews, but I have been thinking about picking it up anyway.When I caught this movie, I didn't know what to expect. The story was easy enough to follow, and the art and animation art easy on the eyes. The acting was OK, and overall I enjoyed the movie right to the end.Anyone who has played the games will be familiar with the universe and some of the characters mentioned in the movie, not to mention the main antagonists. People who have never played the games should have no problem with the movie as a basic history is explained as the movie progresses, with the audience learning all they need to know for the plot to work.Basically, there have been reports of colonies being wiped out, or disappearing. A squad of marines is sent to one planet to try and stop an attack. They succeed, and are ordered to stay and protect the colony. As they work to repair and upgrade the colonies defenses, they are again attacked by an unknown enemy, one that none of them had seen before. This universe makes use of a technology left behind by an ancient dead race to power pretty much all their tech. Throughout the movie it is speculated that this new enemy may have been responsible for the disappearance of the ancient race.As the enemy tries to abduct the colonists, it's up to the heroes to stop them, the main character must make a decision that will haunt him for ever.The good thing is that the story, script and acting are all done well enough to give you some feeling for the main characters.Overall, fairly well done. I'll definitely watch this one again.

Personal: Firstly, I need to say that I'm not the biggest fan of the game series. I have played only Mass Effect 3 and have read the first of the book series. I considered both to be quite excellent. So now that that's clear I need to say: Warning: This movie isn't worth the time put into making it. By comparison to the games and the books it's a poor excuse at an attempt to add some other media to the Mass Effect universe.Summary: The story is focused around the character Vega, which was first introduced in the game, Vega and his team are ordered to protect a researching colony that's working on figuring out some ancient alien tech. Not too far into the movie the colony gets attacked by an enemy who's reasoning and purposes are unknown.Impressions: I'll grant you the script sounds like it would've had potential in the right hands at making at least a decent action movie, however it was written poorly. Most of it isn't only predictable, it's so cliché you have to slap yourself in order not to fall asleep, not to mention Vega's character is - in the games at least, because there isn't a lot of character development to speak of in the movie - cliché to begin with. To sum him up quickly, he's the guy on the battlefield going 'Yeah! Get some!', and that is cause of a great many problems throughout the movie because when he 'falls in love'(meaning he gets a high school crush), they turn him into a lost puppy. It's like they took out every cliché attribute from Peter Parker and Chuck Norris and slammed it into one with this guy. I shouldn't even mention the fact that the way he's imagined and acted is not at all what I was used to from the game.Alright, moving on, voice acting... Some of the lines don't fit well with the stress levels in each scene, they're isn't one that's memorable and you can tell from a far they lacked directing.The animation. Oh boy! Remember the old X-men cartoons? That's about the level this is at. I'm not saying the X-men cartoons weren't great, for that time, they were phenomenal, however for 2012 this animation will feel like it's a blast from the past in a bad way. I think there might even be some scenes that are missing in-between frames, the lip sync is pretty awful and the level of complexity of the angles and scenes is Scooby Doo-ish.Conclusion: This movie is a shameful attempt at cashing in on an already established name. It has no positive side to it, except maybe giving you a good giggle, when you see just how bad it really is.