Assassin's Creed: Lineage

Why does this have a rating of 7? I loved playing the game a lot, when I saw this movie I thought, finally they made a movie about the game! This isn't really a movie, instead a badly short CGI film that has very few words and mostly consists of clips of the game. If you're looking for a quick CGI/acting film that matches the game to a tee then this is it. But lets be honest, storylines aren't really necessary in games, you're there for the game play, not to sit and watch the in-between clips.

So, this year my girlfriend kindly bought me AC: Brotherhood for Christmas – an easy present for her and one I actually wanted anyway. By luck I had the night of the 26th and the majority of the 27th all to myself – what better time to get stuck into this game? Well, sadly it was the PS3 version she ordered in error, so my free time remained just that – free time. Thinking of the game i took the opportunity to watch the short film that had accompanied Assassins Creed 2 – something I'd always meant to watch but never got round to since I'd rather be playing that great game.

The story is a prequel of sorts to Assassin's Creed 2 and, as a promotional tool it makes sense as part of generally feeding the grapevine with more stuff to talk about. Other games use controversy to get chatter (MW2's airport massacre, Medal of Honor's Taliban etc) so perhaps it should be praised for that, however beyond ease of production, I wasn't really feeling it in the way that I felt the couple of trailers for AC2. The best bits of the live-action short film are the same as the moments of style and action from the animated trailers and indeed they very much try to look like the game to the point that I wondered why an extended computer-animated trailer wasn't produced instead of this? The story is fairly secondary here since this "feel" is what the film is all about, so any scene that is about being an actual "prequel" to the Italy-set part of AC2, is pretty dull and one can feel the film desperate to get to the next stylishly filmed bit of stealth or action. The cast are not bad, but they have nothing to do except be live-action version of computer game characters, they don't perform so much as jump around. This limits the film somewhat and it is therefore hard not to compare it to the beauty of the game, since it lays out its stall as being all about the look and style. Of course watching it ahead of the game this may not have been the case but certainly watching in retrospect it feels very much secondary to the game and clumsy by comparison.

A curio piece for AC completists perhaps but not particularly worth seeing otherwise – and certainly not good enough to distract me from the knowledge that I should be playing the game, not watching this!

THIS is what a film based on a video game should be. It was well cast (getting the models/voice actors in some cases was a smart move), well written and directed, visually pleasing (I had no idea that all of the scenery was CGI until I watched the "making of" featurette), and it is highly enjoyable overall. I appreciate how it captured the essence of the video game series and, at times, looked and felt like a cut scene. You can tell that everyone involved understood the source material. While someone doesn't have to be familiar with the series to watch and enjoy it, as it can stand on its own and doesn't contain any major spoilers, fans will especially enjoy it thanks to the numerous nods to the games.

...probably not, but what a spectacle!

You don't have to play the games to appreciate these short films. The era of the Renaissance is brought back to life in this short but thrilling adventure.

The CGI environment is extremely detailed and vivid. Three major Renaissance cities are shown, Florence, Venice and Rome. Florence, the era's birthplace, is the city with the tradition to cultivate art, science and architecture. Rich families are running the town, one of the most successful is the Medici. These families build representative residential Palazzos and public buildings such as orphanages and churches. Rome which becomes a center of art and science a hundred years after Florence (about the time the short films take place) is dominated by the pope who initiates building and support artists just like the Medici. This background is metaphorically shown by the construction of St. Peter dome. And Venice becoming rich through sea trade, a melting point between Europe and the east (Constantinople is Turkish). The rest of Europe is pretty much stuck in the middle ages.

The characters look real and are on a same high level as the fantastic CGI environment. The cast is well chosen, the dialogues plausible and primal for the story. You cant complain about the costumes neither, somebody intensely studied the time-frame fashion (except of course Giovanni's stuff which is fictional). The characters look Italian, nobody puts Jake Gyllenhaal into a Persian dress here, promised. Music, camera work and directing are totally fine too.

The whole thing is basically a synthesis of live-action and CGI and it works extremely well. But it is more than that. The gamer will love this, it will add a lot of background story to the game experience. The historian will be blown away by the details this thing throws at you. I just want to stop the movie for a second and jump in to explore the cityscape (a thing you will actually do in the games). So much happened in the streets of Florence and Rome, the new age is born here.

Beyond this, it is also a good movie but if you review this as a movie/short films keep in mind where it comes from. It comes from a computer game from which it takes its coolness, its style, its atmosphere and its story. Don't judge this monster with the attitude of a conservative film lover.

This is probably the best game adaption into film. It just works out. and it also features such a profound confrontation with history and architecture that is very rare I proclaim, yes, totally.

Watching this was a nice way to go deeper into the lore of assassin's creed but its not perfect and has it's flaws which is why it is a six out of ten