(TV SERIES) HALO Season 1 - An Interesting Adaptation of the Popular Video Game With Great Visual Effects and Some Amazing Action Sequence

I mentioned in one of my previous posts that there was a series that I watched during my trip last month on the inflight entertainment of Emirates airline. As the series was not available in Indonesia via any of the legal streaming services, I decided to give it a try while I had the chance. I began watching it during my departure flight but since the time was not sufficient, I had to continue on my way flight home. Anyway, let's get right at it.

Brief Story Line

Story was set in the 26th century where there was a war between humans and the alien race called Covenant. Dr. Catherine Halsey (Natascha McElhone - The Truman Show, Californication TV series etc) together with Admiral Parangosky (Shabana Azmi - City of Joy, What's Love Got to do With it? etc) and Captain Keyes (Danny Sapani - Harlots TV series etc) developed a Super Soldiers program referred to as Spartan to fight against the Covenant. These Spartans were led by Master Chief John-117 (Pablo Schreiber - Skyscraper, 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi etc) and consisted of Kai-125 (Kate Kennedy), Riz-028 (Natasha Culzac) and Vannak-134 (Bentley Kalu) as the Silver Team. 

Meanwhile on the planet Madrigal, the Covenants sent a team of soldiers to acquire an object that was said to have great importance according to their Blessed One, Makee (Charlie Murphy - Peaky Blinders TV series etc). After the battle, the survivor Kwan Ha (Yerin Ha) was brought by John to the headquarter of pirates led by Soren (Bokeem Woodbine - Spenser Confidential etc). John himself seemed to have an unusual connection with the object, which made Dr. Halsey decided to install an AI inside his head to give her more control. The AI was in the form of a woman referred to as Cortana (Jen Taylor). The object also garnered the interest of Commander Miranda Keyes (Olive Gray) who tried to find out its importance.

So what was the object for and what was its significance? And what would happen to John after his contact with the object which became the item being fought over by Covenants and humans? You could find them all in the first season of this series.

End of Brief Story Line

When I watched the pilot episode of the series, I was surprised by the intensity and brutality of the fights between the humans and covenants and was totally in awe when the Spartans appeared to show what they could do. The violent battle was greatly done with special effects that were really amazing for a TV series. It was clear that they did not hesitate to spend big on those which would explain the high budget of USD 90-200 millions. It's also what made me invested in watching the series to completion.

However, after a great first episode, the subsequent episodes were not even a shadow of the pilot as the intensity was no longer there with focus more on the characters' introduction and the mystery of the object. It was actually OK had it not have such a bombastic opening since it made me having big expectations on the rest of the episodes. There were a bit of actions here and there but not until I reached episode 5 that it got exciting again. In fact, I think it was my most favorite episode in the first season. Sadly though the pace slowed down again and only gotten better in the last two episodes with a really entertaining finale.

Now I have never played the game HALO before, but I knew it was a First Person Shooter genre. So when there was a scene created with such view, it was kind of fun. I read the story was not exactly following the video game's narrative which was intentional by the series developer Kyle Killen (creator of Awake TV series) and Steven Kane (co-creator of The Last Ship TV series). For me it did not really matter as long as the story was still interesting. I think the series was fantastic when it focused on John-117 but less exciting when it was focusing on the character Kwan Ha. No offence to the actress playing her, but she felt like a distraction. However, her last appearance did seem to promise more important role in future.

Aside from John, I also like the character Kai-125, the pirate Soren and the always scheming Doctor Halsey who was very unpredictable. Fun fact: Jen Taylor is the voice actress of Cortana in the video games. The cast generally did a good job in here, although the most interesting part for me about the series was the action and special effects. I understand that it had been renewed for second season which should be exciting with the way it ended in the season finale. So if you like the video game, I think you would love this adaptation as well in term of actions, although if you are very particular on the narrative then you might not enjoy it. For me personally, it would have been more satisfying if the pace was consistent and having more of the spectacular action sequence.

Mike's movie moments rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars