There was a time when we were going to get a hell of a Halo movie. There was a script by Alex Garland, who gave us 28 Days Later and Sunshine, South African wunderkind Neil Blomkamp had signed on to make his directorial debut, and the producer was none other than Peter "I use Oscars as doorstops" Jackson. With a pedigree like that, there was every indication that Halo could break out of the game-to-movie ghetto in grand style, an achievement that has eluded so many properties before it.

Well, long story short, that didn't happen. Blomkamp made District 9, Jackson made The Lovely Bones, and Microsoft's 343 Industries kicked this thing loose. It's an animated anthology, much like The Animatrix or Gotham Knights, and it's heir to all the strengths and weaknesses that the format entails. With a portmanteau like this, weaker episodes can be buoyed by the stronger ones; if a short doesn't click with you, it's a brief wait until something new is on screen that might better suit your tastes. On the other hand, the short format means that some story elements need to be sacrificed on the altar of brevity, and seeing as Halo is a sci-fi action franchise, character and plot are generally the first to get the chop. Given Halo's core demographic, I can't imagine their absence is much lamented.
It's a shame really, as the Halo universe is a fairly rich backdrop. The filmmakers clearly knew this, as the first two shorts, Origins and Origins II, are pretty much Exposition: The Movie, as an AI explains in voiceover the whys and wherefores of Halo's star-spanning conflict, while pretty but mostly static visuals flit across the screen.

The rest of the shorts are a mixed bag, but they share two commonalities: the animation is of a very high standard, and, with one exception, they all take themselves very seriously. There's an overwrought sense of portent and worthiness that is at odds with the brief and shallow stories being told. The worst offenders are easily The Duel, where the alien elite are basically shown to be reptilian samurai, with all that entails, and "Homecoming", whose attempts at humanising a Spartan soldier just comes across as asinine.

On the other end of the spectrum there's Odd One Out, which takes a light-hearted approach to the story of a spectacularly unlucky Spartan stranded on a planet populated solely by a small group of children, although it should be noted that the production notes state that this short is non-canonical. Also worth a look is The Babysitter, where a group of regular troops are forced to take a Spartan supersoldier along on a sniper mission. Although the military tropes employed are fairly mouldy with age, it does manage to wring a bit of genuine emotion from its subject matter.

All up, this is an odd duck of a piece. Without character and meaning, all the cool-looking action in the world is ultimately unengaging, and although the glimpses into the background of the Halo world are vaguely interesting, I can't see even diehard fans of the series checking this out more than once.