7.2 | / 10 |
Users | 3.5 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
The story is a prequel to the video game Assassin's Creed II. It centres around the father of the game's main character Ezio Auditore de Firenze. Giovanni is an assassin living during the Renaissance in 15th century Italy. At this dawn of a new era, a conspiracy is being plotted by one corrupt family to overthrow the powerful Medici family and destroy a unified Italy. As an assassin, Giovanni must face this threat and bring justice. The story introduces the situation before Assassin's Creed II, and the enemies of both characters.
Starring: Romano Orzari, Manuel Tadros, Jesse Rath, Devon Bostick, Alex IvanoviciAction | 100% |
Adventure | 75% |
Short | 10% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0
None
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A, B (C untested)
Movie | 3.5 | |
Video | 5.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
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.
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 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.
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.
2023
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Collector's Edition
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Limited Edition
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