Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		5.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		4.0
Overall		4.0

Assassin's Creed: Lineage Blu-ray Movie Review

Killer vid.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman November 12, 2011

The worlds of gaming and film have been intertwined for years, and many franchises have taken advantage of the cross-promotional opportunities afforded by having their product appear in various formats and media. It’s a rare major action film nowadays that doesn’t have its own accompanying game released, and similarly many successful games have been ported over into cinematic or television adaptations. Assassin’s Creed has been a gaming phenomenon now for several years (I know, I “lost” my now 15 year old son for days a few years ago when the first one came out and he disappeared to our media room to conquer it). The game, while, yes, violent, is notable for its photorealistic backgrounds and some unusually intelligent plotting, characterization and overall writing, including some nice emphasis on actual historical events, slightly reworked to fit within the context of ancient professional assassins. This new Blu-ray compiles three shorts which were streamed starting in 2009 to provide a prequel of sorts for Assassin’s Creed II. The game’s producers, Ubisoft, may have had the promotional aspect of this all in their short term planning, but considering the unusually sumptuous look and feel of this outing, there’s little doubt that they have feature film capabilities at their fingertips, if not in their immediate plans. While this release is no doubt going to be most appealing to the legion of Assassin’s Creed fans, anyone who has enjoyed the work of Hybride Technologies in such films as 300 or Sin City will similarly love the really well handled green screen elements here, which import backgrounds from the game (geometrically repurposed for the film) and interpolate live actors whose faces were scanned and utilized for the game itself. It’s a fascinating cross-medium enterprise that augurs a whole new approach not just for promotion itself, but for extending a franchise into new territories.

If the novels of Dan Brown made the world’s readers more aware of the supposed activities of the Knights Templar, that same quasi-historical “information” is imparted in a different way in the Assassin’s Creed franchise to the world’s gamers, who may be too busy leveling up to actually crack open a book and read some actual history (at least as evidenced by my two teenage sons). Without getting too involved in the rather convoluted storyline of Assassin’s Creed, the franchise involves a contemporary descendant of some Templars who is able to revisit his ancestral memories, reliving lives from long ago, in a desperate attempt to reclaim a series of artifacts which will hopefully prevent the world from being destroyed in 2012 (yikes!). Assassin’s Creed II’s ancestor was one Ezio Auditore, a young Italian man in the 15th century. Assassin’s Creed: Lineage gives us some background on Ezio’s father, Giovanni, an assassin in the employ of the De Medicis who is caught up in a desperate struggle for power between the De Medicis, the Borgias and, of course, the Knights Templar. The main plot here follows Giovanni as he investigates the brutal murder of the Duke of Milan.

While the ins and outs of Assassin’s Creed: Lineage may well escape the casual viewer not that well acquainted with the game franchise, even those who wouldn’t know an Xbox or a PS3 if it reached out and touched them (I have a feeling that capability is coming sooner than we may imagine) will most likely get swept up into the sheer visual magnificence of this brief set of three shorts, which together run a bit longer than a half hour. This is one of the most impressively filmic “promotional videos” in recent memory, with incredible sweep and scope. There’s virtually no sequence without swooping crane shots or choreographed dolly movements, and the live actors are seamlessly blended to the CGI backgrounds with some astoundingly realistic looking results. Assassin’s Creed: Lineage is in fact a good deal less artificial looking than either 300 or Sin City, and that realism helps bring the nefarious streets of 15th century Italy alive, albeit briefly.

While the “main feature” here is certainly well crafted and extremely fun to watch, for real gamers the supplemental features (listed below) will probably be just as alluring. With tons of background on the first two Assassin’s Creed games, another short and various trailers, this ostensible promotional release may be that rare product that actually has a bit of intrinsic value of its own, even beyond the game franchise itself.

Assassin's Creed: Lineage Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Assassin's Creed: Lineage is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of New Video and Flatiron Film Company with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. This is one magnificent looking release, with crystal clear imagery and none of the pseudo-fuzziness that often accompanied backgrounds (intentionally so) in 300 and Sin City. Colors, while somewhat muted at times and amber hued, are robust and lifelike, and fine detail is, to quote a certain gaming son of mine, awesome. Backgrounds look fantastic and while perhaps not quite photorealistic are certainly impressive and well detailed. The costumes are incredibly sumptuous and pop magnificently throughout the film's brief running time. If Ubisoft is getting into the feature film business and this is any indication of what they can achieve, videophiles have some incredible viewing experiences ahead of them, at the very least from a visual standpoint if nothing else.

Assassin's Creed: Lineage Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Assassin's Creed: Lineage features a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mix that is certainly robust and effective, though one wonders why we weren't afforded a true surround mix considering the game franchise's often incredibly immersive sound design, and this short's emphasis on several great action sequences, which no doubt would have benefited from a more immersive sound design. While the stereo mix here does offer occasional directionality (some of the fighting is clearly panned left or right), the visuals here are so astounding that the relatively paltry two channel mix comes off as lackluster by comparison. That said, fidelity is extremely strong, with some fulsome LFE and excellent dynamic range. Dialogue is clear (despite some heavy accents at time, and unfortunately a dearth of subtitles), and it, effects, and score are extremely well prioritized in the overall mix.

Assassin's Creed: Lineage Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• The Making of Assassin's Creed Lineage (1080i; 15:09). This is an interesting look at the green screen and compositing technology utilized to give this short film such an impressive visual sweep. The background of the game, which sold over eight million copies around the holiday season of 2007, is also explored.
• Assassin's Creed Ascendance (HD; 7:56) is an oddly animated short that gives some more background on Cesare Borgia.
• The Making of Assassin's Creed Ascendance (HD; 5:39) features some interviews with the creative team and they talk about positioning this short in between Assassin's Creed II and Assassin's Creed Brotherhood.
• Assassin's Creed Revelations Trailer (720p; 00:52)
• Assassin's Creed Bonus Features features a sub-menu containing these items:
  Developer Diaries: Artistic Direction (1080i; 3:46)
  Developer Diaries: Freedom (1080i; 3:02)
  Developer Diaries: Story (1080i; 3:53)
  TV Launch Trailer (1080i; 2:01)
  E3 Trailer (1080i; 00:28)
  Templar Trailer (1080i; 2:05)
  Ubidays Trailer (1080i; 1:47)
• Assassin's Creed II Bonus Features contains:
  Developer Diaries 1: Ezio: A New Assassin (1080i; 3:37)
  Developer Diaries 2: Power to the People (1080i; 3:29)
  Developer Diaries 3: All Roads Lead To. . . (1080i; 3:56)
  Developer Diaries 4: All's Fair in Love and War (1080i; 3:46)
  Developer Diaries 5: Clothes Make the Man (1080i; 4:26)
  Developer Diaries 6: Home Sweet Home (1080i; 4:09)
  Focus: Assassination Arsenal (1080i; 1:39)
  Focus: Factions (1080i; 2:56)
  Interview: Renaissance (HD; 18:31) features Margaret Meserve, Historian from Notre Dame
  Teaser (1080i; 00:42)
  Gamestop Trailer with Gameplay (1080i; 2:06)
  Gamestop Trailer (1080i; 2:10)
  Launch Trailer (1080i; 1:54)
  E3 Trailer (1080i; 3:44)

Assassin's Creed: Lineage Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

My 15 year old son's eyes lit up when he saw this release arrive and he begged me to let him take a picture of the cover and post it on Facebook so that he could be (in his own words) "the coolest person on the internet for about 10 seconds." I think he was joking, but it's so hard to tell with kids nowadays. There's no doubt that the Assassin's Creed franchise itself is one of the cooler games out there right now, and that coolness certainly continues with this impressive Blu-ray release, which, though short in terms of its main offering, features astounding video and solid audio and enough supplements to keep game geeks busy for at least a couple of hours or so. Recommended.