Better Late Then Never

Best movie ever!

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

"Assassin's Creed: Lineage" is a television mini-series from 2009, so it is already seven years old. the title already states that this one is closely connected to the video game "Assassin's Creed". Actually, it plays before the game action, so maybe gives an insight into some of the characters in here. The entire thing consists of three episodes that run 12 minutes average, so you can easily watch the entire thing in slightly over half an hour. But I think you only should if you really care about the game. To me, the action in here did nothing and I guess you need to know "Assassin's Creed" to have a somewhat memorable watch. I don't like that though. A film should never rely on the audience having seen another film to appreciate it. Let alone having played a game. That's why I give it a thumbs-down overall. Visually, it is okay all in all, but in terms of story-telling and plot I found it mostly forgettable.

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.

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!

It's a video made very well. At first i didn't know why they even bother to make this but after i seen it i understand the link between the first Assassin's Creed game and the new one (will be released soon, 09.03.2010 on the PC) The atmosphere is surprisingly even better than in the game. The actors are fitting the role perfectly and the music is great. Search on IMDb, the main actor is really the one who gives life for the main character in the game. And the role made by him in the movie is flawless. If you're a fan of the game, you must see it.Overall, the best short movie of the year.