POTENTIAL SPOILERS AHEAD
I don’t think there has ever been a good movie made which has been based on a video game. Most have been atrocious. Some titles include Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, Super Mario Bros, Street Fighter and Silent Hill. It saddens me to announce that Assassin’s Creed continues the trend and it isn’t pretty.
With the plot summary from IMDB Assassin’s Creed is about “When Callum Lynch explores the memories of his ancestor Aguilar and gains the skills of a Master Assassin, he discovers he is a descendant of the secret Assassins society”. It starts Michael Fassbender (Prometheus, The Light Between Oceans), Marion Cotillard (Inception,Rust and Bone), Jeremy Irons (Die Hard With A Vengeance, The Lion King), Charlotte Rampling (45 Years, The Duchess) and it is directed by Justin Kurzel (Snowtown, Macbeth)
I am going to keep this review short because I don’t want it to turn into a hate fest where I just rip the movie apart. I am just going to focus on two aspects of the film that really ruined the film for me. So the first problem that I had with the film was that only 35% or so of the film is set during the Spanish Inquisition and that is a really big blow to the film. As an audience member you’re thrusted into the world without any exposition and you have no idea what is going on and who these people are. Not even their backstory!? Personally they should have scrapped the modern-day and made it into a sword and sandal epic like Gladiator or Troy. I understand that the sword and sandal movie is pretty much a dead genre but the modern day narrative is dull and very uninteresting. This is even visibly shown with how the actors are portraying the characters. I know by deviating from the games doesn’t make it a faithful adaptation but it sure does make for a more interesting film.
The second problem with the film is that it feels like I am someone who is playing a VR (Virtual Reality) game. Once Fassbender is plugged into the Animus (the machine that sends him back to the Spanish Inquisition as his ancestor) everybody just stands around and watches him as his ancestor. It felt like I was in a video game shop watching someone play the game as I patiently wait my turn. What they should have done was let the action flow and not cut back to present day. The action in the film is the only redeeming factor of the movie. Even that is a bit dubious in places. For example the horseback chase scene feels like it was presented at a faster speed than it was filmed in.
Overall I’d rate this film as Watch It On The Plane (If You Have Seen Everything Else) because it is truly awful and you shouldn’t waste your time with this film. It’s really a shame how this movie has turned out considering the talent that is involved in the film!
One Movie Every Week 