Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Alpha Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		4.0

Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Alpha Blu-ray Movie Review

Game on!

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman May 25, 2012

Is there a Tom Clancy adaptation in Ridley Scott’s future? It could be, because Scott is one of the Executive Producers involved with this very short film tie-in to the Ghost Recon game franchise. The franchise’s latest installment is the rather cumbersomely named Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Future Soldier, and this new Blu-ray, only slightly less cumbersomely named Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Alpha gives avid gamers a little prelude that sets up the main arc of the gameplay. There’s really not a lot here to build an in depth analysis around, and though I’m sure my sons will be playing Ghost Recon: Future Soldier sooner rather than later, they haven’t gotten it yet, so I’m at a bit of a disadvantage to tell you how well this brief (around 25 minute) film provides salient information about the game. What I can tell you that this is an incredibly exciting little short, one that plays like a fantastic set piece in a larger thriller film. It does in fact play very like a great Ridley Scott set piece, and that’s high praise indeed.

The short gets off to an invigorating start as the unnamed Ghost Leader (Mark Ivanir) rides in a delivery truck in the backwoods of Russia. In fact, it’s not instantly clear that this passenger is part of an elite American squad, as he’s speaking fluent Russian and reminding his Russian truck driver chauffeur that he’s being paid to drive, not chat. When the truck is suddenly stopped by some Russian soldiers on the make, all hell breaks loose when the soldiers make the truck driver open up the back of the truck, and the rest of the Ghost Recon team springs into action, making quick work of the Russians. That then leads into the main action element of the film, where the team initially seems to be on the hunt for a couple of operatives, but instead things get decidedly more dangerous when it turns out there is an armed nuclear warhead on the premises.

Things happen very quickly and violently for the rest of Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Alpha and the fact is at least some of the elements of the story are not made entirely clear, no doubt on purpose. While we get quick portraits of the rest of the Ghost Recon team, including Pepper (Chook Sibtain), Chuck (Chucky Venn) and 30K (Keith Gilmore), several other characters who pop in and out of the short are not given much context. Therefore, it’s not entirely clear who the two main bad guys are, and even more perplexing, who the British agent talking to an “M” like handler (played by none other than Charlotte Rampling) might be.

The rest of the short is a melée of epic proportions, as the Ghost Recon team, aided and abetted by a kind of cool drone device, sneak into a secured outdoor location and attempt to take out two operatives. Just when they think they have things more or less under control, they discover the nuclear warhead, and then, almost without warning, there’s a whole new slew of attackers on their flank, including a giant mecha like device that would be at home in any dystopian anime feature. One Recon team member meets an unexpected demise, but the rest of the team is also pummeled repeatedly, if never into submission.

The short boasts some very impressive artisans behind the scenes. Co-directors Hervé de Crécy and François Alaux won an Oscar in 2010 for Logorama. Co-writer Tim Sexton was Oscar nominated for Children of Men. The film was edited by two time Oscar winner Pietro Scalia, with another two time Academy Award winner, Per Hallberg, on board as sound effects editor. Cinematographer Trent Opaloch’s credits include District 9, production designer Jan Roelfs designed Gattaca and Alexander and costume designer Sammy Sheldon did similar duty on stuch notable films as V for Vendetta, Kick-Ass, X-Men: First Class and Black Hawk Down.

This is a surprisingly filmic little piece, with some mostly convincing CGI (the “cloaking” technique is quite artfully handled, whereas ironically some painted satellite dishes interpolated into a landscape scene look patently fake). This is nonstop action, with equally ubiquitous crane and dolly shots, adding a good deal to the momentum of the film.

The film has a kind of ambiguous ending, where the nuclear warheads are literally lifted out of arm’s reach and then we segue briefly to a scene of downtown London. The implication is clear: the world is in peril and only the Ghost Recon team can save the day.

Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Alpha Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Alpha is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of a consortium including New Video, Flatiron Film Company and Ubisoft (the game franchise's developer) with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.35:1. The short is intentionally filtered toward the gray-green side of things and also features intentionally low contrast a lot of the time, which means this piece is awash in extremely murky shadow detail. That obviously helps to develop the circumspect nature of the Ghost Recon team's lifestyle, but it also means that it's very hard to see what's going on in several key sequences (especially the opening scenes). Fine object detail is surprisingly good, though, especially considering how artificially filtered so much of the film is. Colors are rather drab, intentionally so, and nothing really pops here in a traditional sense. The main color scheme is in fact almost monochromatic, with pallid flesh tones often giving about the only color noticeable other than an occasional burst of frankly fairly drab tones from some of the vehicles. The final shot of London, with those iconic red double decker buses, finally gives a dose of robust saturation and provides a welcome relief from the largely colorless proceedings which have gone before.

Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Alpha Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Alpha features a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 track, and while that's all well and good, audiophiles who watch this nonstop action fest are no doubt going to be asking, "What? Why no 5.1 mix?" With the surfeit of gunfire and general battle mayhem making up the vast bulk of this enterprise, the lack of a surround track is really disappointing. So many little effects could have really provided some awesome immersion, including the fun little four propeller drone that flies hither and yon, and, later, the gigantic robotic killing machine that blasts through the scenery. Ah, well, no use crying over spilled milk (and/or subwoofers). Fidelity here is excellent, with fantastic reproduction of all frequency ranges, though this is a very low frequency-centric track. Things can get kind of busy at times, with overlapping dialogue and effects, and occasionally some of the dialogue is kind of hard to make out as a result of that fact. Subtitles might have been a nice option for those moments, but they're not included on this release. (There are hard encoded subs for the Russian language sequences).

Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Alpha Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• The Making of Ghost Recon Alpha (HD; 28:18) is a Making Of featurette which runs longer than the actual feature, perhaps a first in the history of Blu-ray supplements. This provides a lot of great behind the scenes footage, footage that is even better due to the fact that it's not artificially filtered like so much of the feature is, so you can actually see what's going on (imagine!). Directors Francois Alaux and Hervé De Crecy are interviewed (with a narrator providing translations), as are some of the cast members.


• Trailer (HD; 00:57)

Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Alpha Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Alpha is short and not especially sweet, but it's a breathless piece of entertainment that gets off to a blistering start and then doesn't let up for a moment afterward. This release is obviously the very definition of a niche product, and it's hard to see it making much of an impression on those without an interest in the Ghost Recon game franchise generally, and Ghost Recon: Future Soldier outing specifically. However, for those people, this provides a really exciting 25 minute or so prequel which is incredibly well filmed and which features a nonstop action sequence that is sure to get the adrenaline pumping. While it's disappointing this doesn't have a surround audio option, both the video and audio content here are excellent, as is the Making Of featurette. For Ghost Recon players, this release comes Recommended.