Nasir Ansari before i get into this review id like to state the difference between paragon and renegade in the mass effect series as a whole. paragon and renegade choices aren't supposed to be simply as good vs evil. paragon represents Idealism a.k.a. the Socrates school of philosophy and Renegade represents Pragmatism a.k.a. the Machiavellian "Ends Justify The Means" or in simpler terms for you numnuts out there, paragon is lawful good and renegade is chaotic good. when playing the mass effect trilogy as commander Shepard i usually mixed these up and played as either a paragade or a renagon, essentially a mix of both moralities to make both a realistic and idealistic protagonist.now onto the review, first of all the story:(SPOILERS AHEAD)this film is essentially part of the backstory of alliance marine James Vegas deployment on a colony planet and his encounter with the collectors from mass effect 2. one thing you will notice about James is his good leadership skills and combat expertise. another noticeable trait from James is his admiration and idolization of commander Shepard from the mass effect trilogy, going so far as to wear a badge commemorating the remembrance of the ssv Normandy. members of Vegas squad, his captain and even admiral Hackett mention this. either teasing him for it or warning him that "greatness like that comes at a great price". the other characters were well created and felt like real people in a terrible and life threatening situation. tough not everything was combat and action, there were both fun and lighthearted moments between Vega, his squad and the colonists and some very emotional and heart breaking moments such as the death of one Vegas squad member and James final decision near the end of the film. id say that this was a 10 out of 10 for me, being a fan of the mass effect franchise as a whole i loved it. the animation was very good and the soundtrack was phenomenal.also the reason why the movie is called "paragon lost" is because James Vega himself is a very paragon character. its the reason why he admires and looks up to commander Shepard because Shepard saved the galaxy against impossible odds in mass effect 1 and became regarded as a true hero around the galaxy. near the end of the film Vega had the choice of saving the colonists or saving the intel on the collectors. James made the renegade choice, he saved the intel at the cost of the colonists, as such he lost his paragon. even tough James greatly admires Shepard and wants to follow in his footsteps, he has no idea what its like to be Shepard. when playing as commander Shepard in the mass effect trilogy i had to make dozens of tough choices and decisions both good and bad and live with the consequences. when James went trough the exact same ordeal it emotionally destroyed him, ironically making him experience what its like to be Shepard. when you meet him in mass effect 3, he still admires you but after experiencing firsthand what its like to be him Vegas idolization has been replaced with respect and relief of not being commander Shepard who he sees as a "loco"AKA crazy. for the things that the commander has done. its a very a mentor protégé like relationship between those two and part of the reason why i love his character.

kosmasp The game is incredible (to many people, you might not like it as much, though it would make no sense checking the movie, if that is true), but the animated movie (with a sub-story involving a major character from Mass Effect 3 (but not Shepard himself) is nicely told, but there is never a real Mass Effect feeling. It never got hold of me that is.The cartoon style is made differently than the one of the game on purpose. You might find that one of the reasons you might not connect. You cannot deny EA that they were trying. There is some fun dialog in the movie, but it never evolves to anything more. The question also would be, does it make sense watching it before Mass Effect 3 or after you played it? I watched it after, it's OK as companion piece, but I won't revisit this again (which cannot be said about the games ... re-playable a lot)

Rob_Taylor So, let me start out by saying I'm a Mass Effect fan. I've played all the games and I count the series as one of the best interactive gaming experiences going.So, quite what Electronic Arts were thinking when they farmed out this movie concept to Funimation is beyond me. I'm not even sure if they even had a target demographic beyond "Mass Effect fans".The animation and artwork is of poor quality, really. Certainly sub-par for a franchise like Mass Effect. I can only guess Funimation did this on the cheap. There are some scenes - shuttle flights etc, where the animation is much, much better than that used on the characters, which is a little puzzling.Whatever happened, the animation is uneven, jerky, and very much in the (entirely inappropriate) style of anime that characterizes much of Japanese animation. And old style anime, too, not the more modern style.This makes the movie hard to watch. I had it on in the background whilst I was doing other things, and that helped a lot. Listening, with the occasional glance up at the screen, made it seem better than if I plonked myself down in front of the screen and watched avidly.Voice acting is somewhere between poor and acceptable. The same actor voices Vega in this movie as did the voice work for the game (ME3), but I really couldn't tell it was him until the credits rolled, so make of that what you will.Plotwise, the story is set between the events of ME1 and ME2, with the story being a rehash of some of the events of ME2, involving the Collectors and such. It's relatively simple and, for the most part, does its job competently.However, it is formulaic and would be forgotten if not for its one saving grace - the ending.Having sat through an hour and a half of poorly animated film, our hero (James Vega) is faced with an impossible choice. A personal no-win scenario that even Kirk would blink uncertainly at. Save the hundreds of colonists, or save the girl with the information that could turn the tide of battle. He can't do both, seemingly. I admit, I expected some miraculous macguffin, or Deus Ex Machina to allow both, but, to its eternal credit, this story doesn't let that happen. Vega makes his choice, sacrificing the colonists so that the information the girl has can be utilized.And that brings me to the delicious irony of this story.Those that have followed the Mass Effect games already know about the terrible ending that was foisted off on the fans at the end of ME3. The game itself was reasonable, but the ending sucked. With Paragon Lost, the movie as a whole was weak but it was redeemed by the no-win ending to a great degree. Looking at the writer of this movie, who had nothing to do with ME3, I'm forced to wonder what sort of ending he might have come up with for the game series. It seems he knows what he's doing in that regard.Anyway, irony aside, Paragon Lost is a poor movie, mostly down to the bad animation and some dodgy voice work. It's worth seeing it once, if you are a fan of Mass Effect, but it won't be on anyone's rewatch list. If you hated ME3's endings, stick with ME:PL until the bitter-sweet end and wonder what might have been.SUMMARY: Terribly ironic addition to the Mass Effect universe, marred by shoddy animation and dodgy voice acting. It does have a good ending (at least in my book!) which redeems it somewhat, but it will never be watched more than once.

Rudolf Klusal (klusik) I have no problem with story, as a huge fan of whole series, it was my duty to watch that. Characters are fine, but very stupid and "cliche" acting, that is the most minus thing I've noticed. Stupidness of some things even make me believe scenarists and writers did not even know what (or where to) they are doing, what is conclusion of that story and they just "put it there" to enlarge video length to 90 minutes or so. But maybe that's just my opinion.Next thing I did not like is the very own graphics style and animation. It looks like kind of "ducktales" from 90s' :-) Why the asari have lips as big as some kind of porn-star? That was my first thought when I saw her for the very first time. Other characters are only a little bit more "normal", but still better than asari with big... blue... eyes of hers. In the original game there is theory asari looks "sexy" to all species, so krogan sees asari like "blue krogan" etc. (Refering to "bachelors party" at Ilium, ME2). Maybe we see asari like Vega's dreams "sexbomb" may appear and in games we see asari like Shepards ;) But I don't like this asari, I like Sheppards more.Next thing I have to mention here is some illogical bits and pieces of story. I don't want to make spoilers here, but just... I think some things there are written in original game better and more smooth. E.g. after watching I still don't know relation between ending of this movie and start of ME3 game, how and where J.V. met Sheppard.And last thing -- dubbing. I think it is just horrible. At game JV has more "acted" voice, here I have feeling it is just read from script. And other voices are... just... strange. I don't think bad, just strange. But after all, I think this movie is worth of it, it is not just some great "megafilm", only a little movie most for fans of games.