Red Faction: Origins

Now that is not to say that all SyFy movies are bad. A couple of tolerable, however a lot of them are bad, awful even. Red Faction: Origins isn't just the best SyFy movie I've seen in like a quarter of a year but also one of their better overall movies. Perfect it is not, but compared to the likes of Titanic II, Quantum Apocalypse and 2010:Moby Dick it is definitely watchable. Visually, it is mostly acceptable. The special effects are not really all that great, lacking finesse in how they look, though they have been far worse in quality before and since. However, the scenery is quite striking and the editing is not the choppy quality that I have often seen from SyFy. The music score does give some tension as well, much more driven than usual and a little more subtly used. The script does have moments of corniness, though again nowhere near as stilted or as aimless as before or since, while the story while not the most original on the block for once doesn't give the sense that you know what is going to happen when you shouldn't do, it's crisply paced rather than dull and there are some goof twists and turns. Although I did find the sister character irritating, the rest of the characters are much more likable and less stereotypical than those of the SyFy creature and disaster movies. The acting is also not award-worthy, but better than average with everybody especially the leads visibly trying to give further credibility and on the most part succeeding. Overall, definitely one of their better efforts. 7/10 Bethany Cox

Not having played any of the Red Faction games, I am not really up to speed about the various factions, the history or the lore of this particular setting. However, watching the movie without this predetermined knowledge, the movie turned out to be a good enough Sci-Fi movie. The effects in the movie were adequate. This is a SyFy Channel original movie, after all. The effects did what they were supposed to do, and that was it. Don't expect dazzling multi-million dollar CGI effects here. But still, it worked in the way it was supposed to. However, the costumes and uniforms were really a nice touch, I liked those. And the feeling there was to Mars was alright, although it could have been a bit more detailed and have more atmosphere added to make the audience believe that the movie actually did take place on the red planet. Storywise, then "Red Faction: Origins" was alright as well, it had a good story that had a continual flow to it, and the storyline was easy to follow and had a good amount of key characters to it without becoming a messy result. The actors and actresses in the movie were also doing good jobs with their given roles and characters. All in all, then "Red Faction: Origins" is a good and entertaining movie if you like the Sci-Fi genre. Sure, it is not "Star Wars" or "Star Trek", but in its own right, it does make for a good addition to the Sci-Fi genre. "Red Faction: Origins" get a 5 out of 10 rating from me. Just because a movie is based on a computer game doesn't necessarily make it a bad experience.

I got a kick out of this film because I like the Red Faction IP even though it has been misused twice with RF2 and RF:Armageddon. A decent enough sci fi film that doesn't do anything new or different or with any real skill. The plot of the film makes a lot more sense if you know the plot of the series or have at least played RF:Guerrilla. Even if you don't or haven't, the film is easy enough to follow, I watched it with my Dad and he was able to follow it from start to finish with little confusion. The film is very simple and to the point, it's not on the nose and it doesn't try to be any more than it sets out to be. The acting is alright, a little but dry in places and Danielle Nicolet has some very awkward delivery, but it's mostly fine. The set design is probably the only highlight, while it never really looks like they are actually on Mars, the sets and interiors all have a very gritty working class style to them which fits in very well with the series. Many of the interiors look like factories or unused assembly lines which does lend well to the styles of the games (the good ones). I mean, I watched it years ago to pass the time and watched it again today for basically the same reason. You're not going to get much out of this film other than some very basic entertainment and even then the amount you get is based heavily on your familiarity with the IP. For me this film serves as basic entertainment, when I watched it for the first time I was entertained and when I watched it again for this review I was still entertained, I suppose that you should only consider watched this film if you have nothing else to watch and you just want to be flatly entertained but not really amazed or thrilled. It makes good background entertainment.

I wanted to like this film but it just would not let me. I find it excessively annoying that other reviewers compared it to games that I have never played or ever will. I wanted the movie to stand on its own merits. Battling the forces of nature on Mars is intriguing but battling the same old bad guys is not. The only recognizable actor was an aged and bloated Robert Patrick (Terminator 2). The rest were a bunch of strangers. This is a futuristic tale about a young brother and sister separated during a raid but the grown up brother finally finds grown up sister in the clutches of a maniac (with the requisite black eye patch). Brother gets sister back and patches up the conflict between the factions. Snore!

the budget obviously was so limited that they have to rent a refinery to shoot the movie. sometimes, the setting was just like an abandoned steel factory. why the future looked so bleat and dreary? all the machines were just so out-dated old and primitive, the armors they wore were either funny or useless rubberized plastic molds. shin protectors also looked like the ancient roman soldiers' footwear, not even better than soccer players' shin shields. the acting were so bad, especially that young actress who played the sister role. the screenplay was so bad, sometimes it seemed like watching young Robin Hood with his monk friend. the British production simply looked so pathetic.

The feeling of this movie was spot on. I have been a hardcore follower of all of Volition's work. S.T.A.L.K.E.R, Red Faction, the works. However, getting the correct "feeling" of a movie is not enough for it to be enjoyable. Basically I feel that, not only was the beginning premise (retrieving sorely needed tech from the HYDRA) rather difficult to believe, seeing as the Red Faction is a group of people who were high-tech miners, scientists, and more. After watching this movie, i find myself griping about many small things. Singularity bombs are incredibly rare things, not available to "every marauder to carry with them wherever they go." The division of the factions' territory is.. Interesting, to say the least. The marauders are a faction of scientists. They garbed themselves in savage clothing, not hobo-gear, in order to scare people away from their sacred grounds. They are NOT power hungry, they are not looking for more land. Finally, (and most importantly) I am angered by the fact that these writers seemed to mash S.T.A.L.K.E.R. into the game. Anomalies? Really? A monolith-esque secret division of the EDF? Please. Do some work on your own. A lot of this movie is small little things that make me smile, make me sad, and a huge mixture between them. Needless drama, love interests, things like that are expected. Unfortunately, I found that the lore and canon was slightly... How shall I put this lightly.. seriously messed with. There is nothing else for me to say.

I had hoped this would be something good relative to its budget. I was wrong. If you liked the Red Faction series up to Guerilla please don't watch this. The characters make no sense, and their development is utter rubbish. The lines are just like prunes falling from a dying tree. The plot disturbed me. Not only it uses the "Mason" name on its primary character, it brings a tremendously disappointing course of action. This was said to fill the gap between Guerilla and Armageddon. In RF: Armageddon, Adam Hale is a rogue Marauder priest. In this movie, not only he is a colonist kidnapped by the EDF, brainwashed and made an EDF lieutenant... he also dies, when Alec Mason goes kamikaze on his ship. Yes.. he dies before the story in the game begins. And the errors never stop.. One may not be allowed to wonder how bad this movie is. Just by pure thought one could get great headaches. This movie was very bad. My head hurts. 1/10

I get the conception of clogging TV program between commercials, but for the love of anything or everything - please don't base them on games. In the years that have passed only a few (like 2 or 3) movies would go as "not bad". All the other are crap. This one is no different. First of all. the title - Red Faction: Origins. Origins set up 20 years after the end of third game and that would be around 70 years after original origins originated. Using trendy under-title aside, there are no origins depicted, the main hero - Jake - is non-existent in original game's world. Second - budget - something around two beers and a pizza would it seem. Watching BBC advert interrupters aren't better on plot level, but CGI is way better done. Damn, Discovery Channel and National Geographic put more effort in their stuff. RF:O leaves that feeling like all CGI was done by one guy for a bag of chips. Thirdly, the plot. Overall feeling is like they've got an idea for a three hours long epic struggle between lone abandoned hero and super-secret militaristic evil organization and then just drop random portions of that story so it wouldn't be that long and boring. As a result, there are some characters (those who played the third game might recognize two or three of them, by the name, because no-one is even close in appearance department), some locations, two main factions, taken from the third game plus one aforementioned super-secret-remnants-of-the-third-game's-other-main-faction that for reasons unknown did endure for 20 years being somewhere in the middle between two main factions without anybody noticing. Mixed in one bucket, flavored with as much suspense as watching an egg boil can give, the total effect is a drink that will hurt your brain cells. Lastly, acting. Robert Patric aside (I got the feeling that he actually tried for a bit, but after a while seemed to stopped bother) it's abysmal. Worse than abysmal. Using bowling pins with dubbing would give similar effect, and would save one of the beers from the movie budget. After that you're probably wondering why did I vote 4/10? Simply because I like the Red Faction universe quite much and I can switch my "that was different in the game" point of view for a period of watching a movie. If you can't - rate it at 2/10 (2 being for R.Patrick's effort).

After 200 years of tyranny in Mars, the EDF (Earth Defense Force) is defeated by the alliance Red Faction formed by the Colonies with the Marauders led by Alec Mason (Robert Patrick). However the alliance is broken when Alec's wife Sam (Sarah Brown) and his daughter Lyra are murdered by the Marauders. However his ten-year-old son Jake claims that white soldiers have killed his mother. In the present days, Jake Mason (Brian J. Smith) is a soldier from the Red Faction and Alec is a drunken troublemaker. Jake is assigned to retrieve the technology of the EDF Battleship Hydra will crash on a neutral zone with Tess (Danielle Nicolet). However he finds that white soldiers have arrived first and they get the Hydra. Jake attacks one of the soldiers and finds that she is his sister Lyra (Tamzin Merchant). When he returns to the Colony, nobody believes in his words. Jake decides to find Lyra and deserts the Red Faction. He crosses the Marauder territory to reach Asimov, where he believes he may find a clue of the location of his sister. Along his journey, he teams-up with Tess and the Marauders Leo (Devon Graye) and Corvallis (Gordon Kennedy). Soon they discover that the white soldiers belong to the EDF and their leader plans a war between the Red Faction and the Marauders led by the Matriarch Omaya (Kate Vernon). "Red Faction: Origins" is a surprisingly good Sy-Fy movie, with a solid story and great cast. The status quo of the Martian society divided in Red Faction and Marauders is presented too soon and rushed and fortunately I saw this movie on DVD and I repeated the explanation to understand how these people and EDF are entwined. I believe that some of the bad reviews in IMDb belong to viewers that have not understood the story. My vote is seven. Title (Brazil): "Facção Vermelha: Origens" ("Red Faction: Origins")

first I just want to say this movie is not terrible but it is not great either. When I heard the developers say they are going to make a movie and it wont be animated like the dead space movies are, that it is going to be live action, it got my attention.. Then when they say syfy will air it on a Saturday night, that's when I got a pit in my stomach.. Everyone knows any film that debuts on syfy on Saturday nights is nothing but trash. Still I gave it a shot and a few things bothered me. The Matriarch of the marauders, who is she? her and Alec mason obviously know each other, shes not Sasha because Sasha is dead and obviously not Samonya. The next thing is, for a movie based on a series of games that's nothing but blowing crap up, the movie is lacking a lot of action scenes. There are a few take downs here and there and a couple hand to hand fights and maybe one shoot out but seriously the movie needed much more action scenes for it to be called red faction. As for the story, this may contain spoilers here, We are following Jake mason, the son of Alec mason who has joined red faction and is on a personal quest to find his little sister that was kidnapped by a group of white soldiers when they were kids, while on his quest he discovers something much more is at stake than his sister's well being. They say this movie was suppose to bridge the gap between guerrilla and Armageddon but it doesn't, it is more of a spin off of the main storyline, if anything we get to see the major villain in Armageddon of who he was in his younger years and why he is so crazy in the game, other than that, has nothing to do with the events following Armageddon. The acting itself was decent, somethings annoyed me that i felt was a waste of time, it the scene where Jake asked the girl to distract the guard by taking off her shirt, I thought that was unnecessary b/c if you were in a life or death situation, would you start making jokes about showing your chest to a trained cold blood killer hoping he would be distracted? The girl herself was just an annoying character all together. So basically we have a decent story with decent acting with some unnecessary jokes at a very wrong time, not much action scenes, what else is there// oh yes I am sorry I forgot to mention. I thought the environment was awesome in this movie. We only got to see the bad lands and Eos but thought it was pretty cool and the special effects were much better than most syfy movies, not the usual megashark versus robot octopus or whatever the heck that garbage is called. The spaceships exteriors and interiors were pretty cool, the explosions we did have looked nice, I say the special effects they used were about medium range in quality. The red faction uniforms I felt were awesome, i got very excited when I saw Jake mason pull up in a real looking red faction uniform outside of a video game. Well yes, I guess that's about it, the movie is average at best, not for everyone so I expect to see a lot of people hating it right off the bat