This production is not for everyone, and I admit to not being particularly interested in the integrated video game / CGI type of fantasy sci-fi production myself, but this was interesting enough to warrant a watch, and I'm not regretting having done so.
Admittedly, the plot is rather clumsily constructed, which detracts somewhat from what this could have been.
Having said that though, the actual artistry committed to this creation is something to behold.
Having been confined to a relatively limited budget, this was an impressively ambitious effort, perhaps overly so, but it is visually a spectacular expression of the artform.
For me at least, Mélanie St-Pierre's character as Khara made the film. Without her, not sure how well this effort would have fared.
To be fair, this production starts out very strong, with Khara and her cadre of clonettes on board their warcraft, the inital scenes with the mysteroius Driud entity and it's wily cohort, prying their way into the AI core, the invasion battle scenes . . . but OK, no spoilers here.
But then, as the story begins to stretch out as a meandering journey through various travails, it just seems to lose steam along the way, with various action scenes tossed in as props to keep the excitement level artificially inflated.
By the ending scene (the film is divided into a series of acts), it just seems that the writing was getting tired, and just had to throw in the proverbial "to be continued" invading hordes of the whatevers as a sort of departing plot prop (no spoiler here, there are numerous other details not included in this description).
It's somewhat unfortunate, as there were several potential story threads and philosophical ponderings which could have been much more richly enabled and elaborated upon, but were left somewhat vacant.
Garm Wars is an interesting template which could be further developed, but definitely could benefit from more finely honed story crafting to match the remarkably rich visual motifs into which this template has been enmeshed.
I want to give its creators credit for a fascinating effort, and wouldn't be against seeing another, more well developed (and funded) effort in this direction.
I'm torn between a 6 and 7 rating . . . but am giving a benefit of a doubt, let's go with a 7.
