Genre: Action/Sci-Fi
Director: Gareth Edwards
Writer: Mo Buck
Based on the video game series
Cast: Alexander Skarsgard, Ben Foster, Chadwick Boseman, Sarah Gadon, Margaret Qualley, Ed Harris, Timothy Olyphant, Andy Serkis, Mark Hamill, John Slattery
Plot: John-117, aka The Master Chief (Alexander Skarsgard) is running in the African jungle with his gun just mere minutes after his spaceship was destroyed by the Prophet of Truth’s (Ed Harris) fleet. John isn’t feeling so well all of a sudden and he collapses on the ground.
A group of marines led by Sgm. Avery Johnson (Chadwick Boseman) is looking for the Spartan in the deep African jungle. Sergeant is smoking his iconic cigar, when a young rookie says he found the Master Chief. Johnson goes to see his old friend, who’s lying motionless on the ground. He checks for vital signs, but he can’t due to the heavy armor. He asks for backup. Before he can finish his sentence, the Major grabs his arm asks him to help him get up and starts walking again with the group, when he notices something familiar, a Covenant Active Camouflage. Johnson nods in the Camouflage direction and an Elite reveals itself, it’s Thel’ Vadamee (Ben Foster). In one quick movement, John-117, who lost his gun, disarms Johnson and has his pistol on Thel’Vadamee’s head. Johnson tells him the Elite is with them. John-117 grabs an assault rifle from one the Marines and continues to walk, annoyed.
Johnson notices enemy Phantoms flying overhead. To avoid being exposed with such a large group, he splits them up in two. He will lead one half and go west to finally reach the extraction point and John and the Arbiter will lead another. The Master Chief’s group encounters a group of Brutes who attacked a pack of Marines, known as Bravo, who were the ones in charge of their extraction. They save them by killing the brutes and taking the sole remaining member of the squad with them. Another Phantom drops Brutes in their way again and the squad kills them in no time. Thel’Vadamee and the Master Chief eventually make it to the river, where they were supposed to be extracted. There’s only one Pelican instead of two. Johnson is firing the machine gun of the Pelican in the air with the rest of his group, while John’s group is attacked by forces on the ground. They eventually witness Johnson’s Pelican crashing and they leave the river facility to go find him.
They arrive at the crash site, only to find no sign of Johnson. John-117 head over to the Brutes’ headquarters not far away from here. They hide behind a rock and see a Brute Chieftain dragging Johnson inside the dam. Thel’ Vadamee and the Master Chief run inside and save Johnson. They come out and they call for an extraction while they defend their peculiar position of being right in front of the enemy’s quarters. They’re forced to retreat in a cave when two Phantoms show up and they thought it was over, when two Pelicans arrive and gun down the Phantoms, extracting the three of them.
Opening Credits
They land in the underground UNSC base, where they meet with Miranda Keyes (Margaret Qualley) who inform them that the Prophet of Truth has killed the vast majority of the UNSC fleet. They enter the command center where Terrence Hood (John Slattery) arrives. He asks for everyone to leave the center immediately. He tells them that he prepared an all-out attack on Truth’s army and that they need to evacuate this UNSC base. The Covenant jams their communication and cut off the power. The Prophet of Truth speaks over the transmission and announces that everyone will burn. One of the main door explodes and Covenants invade the place. While Johnson, Thel’ Vademee and a bunch of Marines defend the place, the Major, Hood and Keyes place a time bomb in the base. They go fetch their two friends and get in an elevator. They detonate the bomb and narrowly escape the explosion.
They reach an underground garage where the other Marines who were evacuated earlier were waiting. They take tanks and Warthogs and leave the facility by embarking on Tsavo highway. They fight numerous Covenants, all from the Truth’s army and they destroy a lot of Banshees, Ghosts and Phantom, all valuable means of transportation for the Covenant army. They finally reach the end of Tsavo highway where there’s a barrier, blocking access to an ancient artifact buried beneath the Earth’s surface and the city of Voi, where the Prophet of Truth installed his Anti-Aircraft defenses. John-117 gets down his Warthog and deactivates the barrier alone after going through Covenant resistance. He goes back on his Warthog and the squad leaves the highway, in direction of Voi.
They drop Admiral Hood where a pack of hidden Pelicans are waiting to fly. Their main goal when reaching Voi is to destroy the Anti-Aircraft defenses to allow Hood’s fleet to sneak attack and destroy Truth’s fleet, who wants to fire all Halo rings, who have the power to destroy every living thing within three radii of the galactic center. John’s squad use their Scorpion to pierce the wall of the Industrial zone where the enter the city of Voi, with their Warthogs. Keyes takes the leadership from John-117 and lead the squad to an underground facility where the UNSC has officers on stand-by. They come out with little quads and rocket launchers, great allies in their battle against the Anti-Aircraft Unit. They go in the Anti-Aircraft field guerilla-style take their opponents by surprise. The newly recruited marines take a couple units down with their rocket launchers. Their victory is short-lived however, when a Scarab tank arrives and crushes the vast majority of Marines. John-117 takes Thel’Vadamee with him and they jump on the Scarab tank. They kill its occupants and override its main core. They jump off and the Scarab falls on the ground. The squad splits up again. John takes the remaining marines with him and clear a Brute warehouse, while Keyes, Johnson and Thel’Vademee take local volunteers to go and destroy the final anti-aircraft gun. Both teams are successful. After the final Anti-Aircraft gun is taken down by the UNSC, Admiral Hood attacks the Prophet’s fleet. The element of surprise was lost a long time ago and they are unable to deal any significant damage to the fleet, who leaves. Hood tries to follow the Prophet, but the portal he used is suddenly used by an unknown ship who crashed into Voi. Keyes orders Hood to stay on Voi. Everyone reunites with John-117 and Thel’Vadamee asks him if any more Brutes had arrived to which John responds that it’s even worse.
The ship who crashed was the Indulgence of Conviction, a once Covenant-held ship that was infested by Flood. The flood get out of the Indulgence of Conviction and start infecting the city. Thel’Vadamee and John-117 decide to prevent further Flood spreading by destroying the ship. They make their way in the factory they just cleared that was now full of Flood. They’re helped by Rtas’Vadum (Timothy Olyphant) a Covenant who also fights against the Prophet of Truth. They arrive at the ship and the two Covenants stay outside to make sure nothing enters and attack the Spartan while he’s inside. John is contacted by Miranda and Johnson while he’s inside. They tell him they found Cortana (Sarah Gadon), his AI and that she’s on the ship. John halts the ship’s destruction to find her, but it turns out it’s just a recording. The Spartan eventually destroys the ship and he’s surprised by 343 Guilty Sparks (Mark Hamill), who’s extracted with him. Everyone boards Rtas’Vadrum’s ship. 343 Guilty Sparks gives the Master Chief another message from Cortana. She says the ship she’s in, the High Charity, has been infected by the Flood and it’s moving towards Earth. She also states that there’s a way to stop the Flood. Due to Cortana’s rampancy, Hood doesn’t believe in her and decides to bunker Earth’s defenses. Rtas doesn’t agree. They should all work together to stop the Flood, the humans barely survived a small infection. John and Miranda work together to get Hood to send the remaining UNSC fleet through the Portal to stop both Truth and the Flood. The rest of Rtas’ crew flies over the surrounding areas to make sure there’s no Flood left on Earth.
The combined forces of Covenant fighting against Truth and the Humans travel to the Ark, otherwise known as Installation 00, with Guilty Spark. They’re attacked by the Truth’s forces. The UNSC deploy soldiers on the ground to find a landing zone for its fleet. John-117 is deployed with a bunch of Marines. They take out several groups of Loyalists and prevent them from building an AA battery that could’ve ended their chance at winning the war in an instant. They stumble upon a group of Marines who escaped the crash of their Pelican. They say they found a good landing zone, but it needs to be secured. The Master Chief cleans the zone and the Forward Unto Dawn can land, unleashing a considerable amounts of UNSC forces. They’re able to form defenses groups, but their efforts are vain, a Scarab tank arrives and destroys most of them. This is when Rtas destroys it with his ship. He lets them know on the ground that Truth’s fleet has been destroyed. John-117 and Thel’ Vadamee are guided by 343 Guilty Sparks to find the Cartographer, it could tell them where Truth is. They find it and they fly away to prevent Truth from firing the rings and destroy life.
The group splits in three groups to each destroy a tower powering the defensive barrier protecting the Prophet’s citadel. Thel’Vadamee destroys the first one, Johnson and Keyes the second and John-117 the last one. Thel’Vadamee asks for everyone to meet up before entering the Citadel, but Keyes and Johnson’s radio was destroyed during the battle. He enters with the Master Chief and Guilty Sparks, who guides them. Johnson managed to sneak inside, but he’s spotted by a Brute, who brings him to the Prophet of Truth. Truth tells him that he needs him. A Pelican enters by a window and Miranda Keyes is piloting. She lands and takes down Brutes. She’s starting to get overwhelmed by the number of Brutes. Johnson urges her to leave without him and she refuses. She’s surrounded by Brutes now. Truth tells her that there’s no way she could kill them all. Johnson offers her a pact, she could kill both of them, so Truth can’t use them for whatever he intends to use them. She was about to kill Johnson when Truth fires and kills Miranda. Truth picks up a devastated Johnson and he forces him to activate the Halos.
Thel’Vadamee, the Master Chief and Guilty Sparks arrive and see Miranda dead and Johnson activating the Halos. They’re suddenly stopped by the Gravemind (Andy Serkis), the leader of the flood who appears in front of them, as an illusion. He offers them a partnership between their three species, they can’t refuse. The Gravemind disappears. They run in the Prophet’s direction. Johnson is now back near Miranda’s body. The flood appears and infects the Brutes around the Prophet. The Arbiter takes out his sword and threatens the Prophet with it. The infection progresses in the Prophet and before he’s totally claimed by it, the Arbiter cuts the Prophet’s head off. The Master Chief deactivates the Halos. The four of them decide to leave with the Pelican, but the Gravemind appears for real this time and with his tentacles, prevents them from leaving, destroying the Pelican. The flood turns against them and they fight it. They blast a hole in a wall and they fall in another room, where there’s no flood. They see a control panel. They use it to open a window and see an incomplete Halo on the other side, built by Truth to replace the one they previously destroyed. Guilty Sparks explains to them that if they activate it, even if it’s incomplete, it would destroy the remaining flood, as they are reportedly all here at the moment. They wonder how to activate it when they see the High Charity, the vessel transporting Cortana, crashed not far away, she must know how to activate it, she said she had a plan to destroy the Flood. They exit the facility and steal some Banshees to fly away to the High Charity.
Johnson leaves the group to gather the survivors, while Guilty Sparks leaves to get closer to the Halo and to learn how it works. When they reach the High Charity, John-117 is the only one to enter and he’s surprised to see it empty. He has visions of the Gravemind and Cortana who seem to be in conflict. He eventually finds a weakened Cortana hologram and inserts her back into his armor. She tells him her plan. If he destroys the High Charity, it will start a reaction chain that will help destroy the Flood. When he gets out of the room, he realizes that there’s now flood in the vessel. He reaches the core room and destroys the reactors. He makes his way out. He finds Thel’Vadamee defending himself from the Flood. They run away and find a nearly-destroyed Pelican who must have crashed during the earlier battle. They’re able to fly away with it and they reach the Halo.
They meet up again with Johnson outside the control room, Johnson landed there with the Forward Unto Dawn. Guilty Sparks, who’s already inside, refuses to let them in until there’s no more Flood nearby. They manage to kill all of it and they finally have access to the control room. They’re able to shut the doors before any more flood could enter. John gives Cortana to Johnson, as she’s the only one who can actually fire a Halo. 343 Guilty Sparks finally appears. He says that the Halo isn’t completed and is ready to fire in a couple of days. Johnson says they don’t have a couple of days. Guilty Sparks says that if they fire the Halo now, it would destroy the Ark. Johnson doesn’t want to hear any of it. Guilty Spark’s eye turns red and fire beams Johnson. John rushes to Johnson. He’s too victim of Guilty Spark’s fire beam, his shields are destroyed. Guilty Sparks knocks Thel’Vadamee out. John’s armor starts to smoke as Guilty Sparks fires at him again. John attempts to escape the Guilty Sparks’ beams. Johnson slowly gets up and shots at the little ball with a Spartan Laser. It knocks it out. John grabs the Spartan Laser and shots at Guilty Sparks once more, destroying it. He rushes to Johnson. He gives Cortana back to him. Cortana’s hologram gets out of the chip while John is near his friend. Cortana activates the Halo has Johnson dies. Thel’Vadamee who saw everything since he woke up, finds the Spartan. Cortana gets back in her chip and back in the helmet. They run outside while defeating Flood. The installation is starting to explode. They find Johnson’s Warthog and drive it. They floor underneath them explodes, but they’re barely able to make it to the Forward Unto Dawn. They jump in its hangar. They don’t land well. The Arbiter lands in a pile of crates. A Scorpion is starting to slide. John is trying to go and close the door of the hangar. He takes out Cortana and her hologram takes control of the ship. She hits full throttle. The ship leaves the Halo’s atmosphere, while John is hanging on a terminal, unable to close the door. The Scorpion falls and John barely decks it. The Arbiter is now in command of the Dawn, seated. Cortana mentions to John that it was an honor serving with him. The Halo explodes and everything goes blank.
Fleet Admiral Terrence Hood is giving a speech in honor of the fallen soldiers of this operation. We see a picture of Miranda Keyes and a picture of Avery Johnson. Thel’Vadamee and Rtas’Vadum are present. The Marines salute them. After Hood is done, him and the Arbiter share an embrace. They can’t believe he’s dead, we see a casket with a picture of John-117 on it. Thel’Vadamee announces to Hood that he’s leaving with Rtas’Vadum, he’s going back with his people. He looks back one last time at John and embarks Rtas’Vadum ship, he’s the captain now. He flies away as Hood looks at the ship distancing itself from Earth.
Post-Credit Scene: Cortana asks for John. The Forward Unto Dawn is torn in half. The Master Chief wakes up. Cortana guides him through the Forward Unto Dawn. She explains to him that they were entering the portal just has the Halo exploded and the disturbance tore the ship in half. John enters a cryotube and asks Cortana to wake him up when she needs him. She says she will. Their half is deviating towards a Requiem, a legendary planet.
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