It's hard to find a worthy introduction here because this is more of a mess than a movie. After everything that spawned after the original movie, everyone was so much in hope that one day there will a sequel or spin-off that kinda got the idea of part one and continued it in a decent manner. Well, we are still waiting...
In times where computer games cinematics are made in a very sophisticated way this movie looks like it's been made by fans using a game engine. Some animations and (bug) walk cycles look so bad, you can literally say "my playstation graphics look better". Things we have to distinguish though is effects quality and cinematography, and the cinematography is quite ok at some points. I actually found the music quite fitting at most points and the theme(s) of the original film received a passable makeover, except for when the music department decided to make a dream-metal version of it. It's one of these many moments where you just look into the sky and scream "whyyyy"?
But the most annoying two things are the new characters (their interactions, their models - some much less detailed than others -, their dialogue, etc...) and the (missing) logic of some scenes. The most prominent point in my opinion is time: Time is so scarce in some scenes, the bugs are advancing fast in vast numbers - it takes forever to just kill one - and yet the characters find lush windows of time to spew out dialogue that is, and here we are again, duller than in most mediocre video game cinematics. Certain decisions made, some serious lag in reaction times and some immediacies of unfoldings in situations just make no sense at all. And as much as I tried - it killed the atmosphere, credibility and legitimacy of this film for me. You may get through with in video game cutscenes - but not in a movie.
All in all: Here and there a scene is nicely set, here and there an effect actually works, here and there something not completely predictable happens and here and there story proceeds in a way that actually would make sense on a larger scale of tolerance. But most of the time this is just an empty movie that decorates itself with names that we once learned to love - only to find dull shells of the past. Yes, this one is lazy, very very lazy.
In times where computer games cinematics are made in a very sophisticated way this movie looks like it's been made by fans using a game engine. Some animations and (bug) walk cycles look so bad, you can literally say "my playstation graphics look better". Things we have to distinguish though is effects quality and cinematography, and the cinematography is quite ok at some points. I actually found the music quite fitting at most points and the theme(s) of the original film received a passable makeover, except for when the music department decided to make a dream-metal version of it. It's one of these many moments where you just look into the sky and scream "whyyyy"?
But the most annoying two things are the new characters (their interactions, their models - some much less detailed than others -, their dialogue, etc...) and the (missing) logic of some scenes. The most prominent point in my opinion is time: Time is so scarce in some scenes, the bugs are advancing fast in vast numbers - it takes forever to just kill one - and yet the characters find lush windows of time to spew out dialogue that is, and here we are again, duller than in most mediocre video game cinematics. Certain decisions made, some serious lag in reaction times and some immediacies of unfoldings in situations just make no sense at all. And as much as I tried - it killed the atmosphere, credibility and legitimacy of this film for me. You may get through with in video game cutscenes - but not in a movie.
All in all: Here and there a scene is nicely set, here and there an effect actually works, here and there something not completely predictable happens and here and there story proceeds in a way that actually would make sense on a larger scale of tolerance. But most of the time this is just an empty movie that decorates itself with names that we once learned to love - only to find dull shells of the past. Yes, this one is lazy, very very lazy.