info-12388 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.

oli-reed Anyone who is a fan of the Mass Effect games and has played the last one is already familiar with James Vega and is somewhat aware of the story of his lost platoon. Though James Vega is by no means a favourite character of mine, he still is a fun and worthy addition to the amazingly diverse roster of characters offers up in the ground-breaking game series. However, this spin-off animation does not live up at all with the original three games cinematic style, characters, story or story telling. I know it is a slightly difficult comparison to compare a game to an animation, however when a feature that has to focus more on combat than story has a more fuller narrative then you know it is bad. Even compared to the third game - an ending that is regarded as one of the worst game endings ever feels more satisfying than this.The animation felt the laziest aspect of the whole production and offered nothing special to fans. When the main character's neck is bigger than his head then you know how poor quality the animation is.Not only is the animation lacking, but the characters provided for the viewer to be emotionally invested in were two dimensional and bland for the most part, not forgetting some very dodgy voice acting and impressions of old characters, as well as a PAINFULLY obvious 'bad-guy'. Not forgetting massive plot holes e.g. why didn't Essex go after the asari and save her with biotics, or why was it so easy to get out of the pod chambers, even when they weren't paralysed).There were some parts I liked and the end felt somewhat satisfying and the beginning and end felt reasonably satisfying, however from a name this good, fans and newcomers should justifiably expect something more. I know this is based on a comic, so the production cannot be blamed entirely, however this could have been a lot more of an exciting tale if executed directly. As well as this, why they chose this piece to do as an animation is beyond me. They could have just as easily animated a satisfying alternative ending to the series (although that would be hard to execute well), or create a fresh narrative from the plentiful world that mass effect has created (pre, post, or parallel to Shepard). I would have personally liked them to create a narrative from the Rachni Wars.OVERALL LAZY AND DISAPPOINTING WITH THE POTENTIAL IT HAD

ode_for_cruelty21 As a huuuuge fan of Mass Effect and its universe/lore, i was pretty damn skeptical going in to this movie. Pretty much anything i saw in the trailers beforehand (especially the cheap animation) did not impress me one bit. I'm glad to say most of my biggest fears were in vain. Well, the animation isn't exactly Studio Ghibli -like eye candy, but i got used to it pretty quickly.My other main concern was main protagonist, James Vega, who's probably the most boring and generic character in the games. Or at least out of your squadmates. They manage to make him likable though, someone you could really root for. The voice acting wasn't as top notch though, and the same goes for pretty much every character. Still, it is adequate.What it comes to the most important thing, which is of course the story, it's quite... Good! It's structured kinda like a handful of missions and cut scenes in the game, and you can almost see in the eyes of your mind how these events would be handled in a game. The dialogue should get a couple of chuckles out of ME-fans, and the ending is actually quite moving, yet fitting. The games are all about big choices, after all.I could nitpick on some minor things, like the Krogans who didn't look much like Krogans and so forth, but i don't really feel like it. It was faithful enough to keep me well satisfied.If you're a fan of Mass Effect, at least give Paragon Lost a chance.

Alex L. 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.