After "The Animatrix" was released, which was a series of short films by famed anime studios based around the Matrix series, several other similar productions were produced with mixed results. Most of them came from video games published by EA, including Dante's Inferno, Dragon Age, Mass Effect, and Dead Space. In truth, these films aren't as bad as one would think, but still largely depend on your enjoyment of the franchise and genre in question. "Dante's Inferno - An Animated Epic" happens to be based on the epic poem of old, and one would think it to be easier to watch without having played the game.And yet, having read the poem might help you appreciate the film properly, and given the writing style and length of the poem you would be better off playing the game. If you had read the poem, you'd likely be disappointed in how difficult it would be to portray such an epic journey on screen. Based on the game which is in turn loosely based on the poem, this follows Dante returning from the Holy Crusade only to find his family slaughtered, and his beloved Beatrice taken in front of his eyes by the Devil himself. He races through the depths of Hell and the nine circles, each portraying a specific class of sin, guided by a ghost of a wise poet to save Beatrice from a fate as the wife of Hades, but on the way must face the sins he lived in life that led to this tragic event. It sounds epic, and mostly is, but is hardly a story in the way we'd appreciate. It's more of a journey where the viewer can partake in seeing the twisted and disturbing representation of Hell, and while the commentary on the Crusade and Dante's actions are interesting, they only make up about ten minutes of the film. The rest is clearly just a series of set pieces, each lifted from levels in the game, where you can point out which scenes were plat-forming sections and which were big-boss action sections. Thankfully, the film really is disturbing at some parts, and the violence and nudity and grotesqueness of it all will paint a picture of Hell few would imagine.And yet, for a film that relies almost solely on the imagery, the visuals betray the dark themes and setting. The background is painted with detail, but the animation looks similar to your standard DC Comics animation adaptation, and is not nearly acceptable for this story despite what they try to portray. The animation was done by six different studios, of which only Production I.G. and Manglobe might get some recognition, and a third is Film Roman, which was made up of teams that made Garfield and Peanuts specials once upon a time. The others seem to be lesser-known Korean studios, likely chosen for cheaper production costs. The animation style itself is nearly identical until the last third despite the different studios, and instead only the character designs seem to change. It just isn't enough: for this subject matter, Studio 4C or Madhouse might have been a better choice for all the lesser known studios, and I would have loved to have seen a much more abstract style like that seen in "Mind Game" or "Tekkonkinkreet," or even "Fullmetal Alchemist: The Sacred Star of Milos." The style here is just too tame. 
The animation style and story itself don't mix well, but otherwise the production values are at least passable. The last couple of acts are pretty exciting to make the whole thing worth the price of admission. The English only dub fits the setting (by which, I mean everyone sounds like Englishmen from centuries ago). The orchestral and choir background music brings the dramatic quality this needs, but I felt both the voice acting and music was likely ripped from the game directly.Overall, this actually isn't bad, as least better than most other game-related direct-to-dvd films. That's almost purely on the source material, and the film doesn't live up to the epic poem well enough to do it justice. Not to mention, this only does the first of the trilogy, and the other two may never get told in such fashion, leaving this on a slight cliffhanger. I rarely say this, but this might be best tackled as a 3D/live-action big-budget release. But for the price of this movie today, it fills a void as a epic violent tragedy with biblical themes.