While I've been wanting to pick up the recent video game of the same name, I did not realize an animated movie had been released as well. I seen the Anchor Bay blu ray for sale earlier for $20 and decided to blind buy it. The movie is about Dante, a knight (Templar?) fighting in the Crusades. He arrived home to find his family murdered and his love, Beatrice, barely alive. After she finally passes, her soul gets nabbed by the devil himself, Lucifer and dragged into the depths of Hell. The rest of the movie is Dante, along with his spiritual guide Virgil, going through the various stages of Hell to rescue her soul. It also features flashbacks throughout the movie to flesh out the story. It was quite graphic and the art style (of which there is several as different segments were done by different directors) is quite good. It definitely increased my interest in the game by ten fold, and I plan on buying that sometime soon.
I read the book as well and just started the videogame. The book didn't have a 50 foot topless Cleopatra with tongues in her nipples attacking Dante with unbaptized babies with swords for arms. Score one for adaptations. Gameplay is a bit repetitive but the design is pure old school Catholic fever dream. Kids playing it since it has nudity may be looking into therapy later.
The game rocks and so does the animated movie. It has the feel of Heavy Metal, Wicked City, Urotsukidoji and other kickass adult toon movies.
I enjoyed it quite a bit, it was nice seeing all the different styles of animation that make up this compilation. Some segments and styles clearly overshadowed others, but overall it was a really solid piece of animation. I wish EA had put this much effort into the moldy turd that was the Dead Space animated movie...
