Assassin's Creed Movie Review

Assassin's Creed Movie Review. Assassins Creed is a sci-fi/action film based on the Ubisoft games. Assassins Creed is about Callum, a murderer who is on death row, who is saved by a group of people who want to use him to access his ancestor's memories and find the Apple of Eden, a powerful object that could change the world for good. First of all, if you enjoy the games, particularly Assassins Creed 2, Brotherhood and Revelations, you will not like this film and if you haven't... you probably won't like it either. There are many fine actors in the film, Michael Fassbender, Marion Cotillard and Jeremy Irons to name a few but the plot and dialogue in this film are so poor that they all go to waste. 

The protagonist, Cal, as we are first introduced to him as an adult, is a murderer and the only explanation we get for this murder is that the person he killed was a pimp. Throughout the film he is angry and violent, grabbing a woman by the neck and displaying nothing that would endear him to the audience and yet the plot is encouraging you to root for him. When he is then put in life-threatening situations, there isn't any tension because we, the audience, don't like him and don't care what happens to him. This is a problem with all of the characters in this film, they are all 2 dimensional, boring characters that you can't get invested in. The strongest character, in my opinion, is Maria, an assassin played by Ariane Labed, who values her creed's cause more than her own life and completely dedicated to what she is doing but ultimately her character's arc comes to nothing. 

There will always be 2 types of people when it comes to movies based on video games. Those that play the games and those that do not. I fall in the latter category, however, I have watched my wife play the games from a distance. For me, there were quite a few instances where I asked myself questions that may have been answered had I been an avid player of the games. This movie moved at a considerable pace, rarely slowing down for the audience to breathe in what it has witnessed. The brief, yet exciting sequences depicted within the realm of the Animus did nothing to save this from being a mediocre adaptation. The story did not follow a true linear course but did at least take time to throw in Easter eggs for the gamers. Watching a man learn martial arts and parkour through osmosis was interesting and lent itself to the narrative this film attempted to have. The inclusion of the Knights Templar as the villain did very little to hide the true villain, the Church. It was obvious by the sheer narrative that it was not the Templars, a large group of henchmen doing the bidding of the Holy Land, that were interested in the Apple of Eden, the MacGuffin created for this movie based on one of the thMacGuffinames. This movie has some interesting special effects that do not look like they were given the same love and attention other movies in this genre have enjoyed. This movie is more for the fans of the games then anyone else, but even those persons may feel let down by this film.

A film with truly no vision behind it, the bland and boring and confusing, 'Assassin's Creed'. Based on the video games which I am a big fan of because of the interesting story and characters and most importantly the action. The action in this film consists of constantly cutting between characters and never being able to keep focus on what is going on. The film is confusing the en to the biggest Assassin's Creed fans, the characters are extremely 1 dimensional that not even Michael Fassbender who is trying his hardest to make this film appear competent. The story does not make sense as Fassbender's character constantly changes motivation, and is able to learn the skills of an Assassin without even knowing that there was an "Assassin's creed" brotherhood. Unless you like seeing awful action and confusing plot-lines that go nowhere, I do not recommend this "film".

I had high hopes for this one... I really did. But I must have learnt by now that films based on video games tend not to truly work (except some moments of Lara Croft). Last year we had the honor of seeing the needless Angry Birds and the concussion of CGI also known as "Warcraft". One of the problems of Assassin's was also the problem of Warcraft - cramming too many characters, plot points and too much of the universe at once. If I had to choose a person that I had to ear until I died it would be Jeremy Irons and the powerful quietness of Charlotte Rampling can't be stressed enough (the last shot of 45 Years says more than this entire movie). However Marion and Fassbender are the ones really carrying, the film, as they're two of the best working today. It shows that Justin Kurzel knows how to direct them, but it's way more worth it to see them in his brilliant take on the Scottish play. Macbeth was so beautifully shot and the script was so foolproof (duh, it's Shakespeare) that you're left to wonder where did Kurzel's focus and inspiration go. The unnecessarily complicated script is much to blame as it left me not understanding a single thing of what just had happened (Should I have played the video game before? Ain't nobody got time for that!). Its sense of movement is at times very appropriate to the genre but the actions scenes have so many cuts that it may have been edited by Marvel. At the end of the day it's not interesting enough and the video game isn't failry translated. Still, Michael Fassbender running around shirtless is... pretty hot!

Video games are challenging to adapt, which is why they never turn out well. While Assassin's Creed may have been good for a TV show, a series as long and complex as this is not fit for a 2-hour movie on the big screen. No one expected this to be good, but I did not expect this to be this bad. Here, it switches between the present day and the Spanish Inquisition, much like how the games move between time periods. However, in the games, the player will spend the majority of the time in the past, rather than in the present. The movie does quite the opposite. While we could be seeing Agular's adventures in the Spanish Inquisition, they opt for an extremely dull story involving the Templar's quest for the Apple of Eden in the present day and the psychological effects of using the Animus. While those would be a pair of interesting episodes in a TV show, we want it to be about the Assassins, not the Templars in the present day. It also doesn't help that none of the characters in this movie are memorable in the slightest. The main character is this death row inmate who gets shipped to Abstergo, who try to use his lineage to find the Apple of Eden. There's also this really boring side plot about the leader of the Templars and his daughter, which is neither interesting nor memorable. The movie's color scheme is terrible. The whole dang movie is varying shades of brown and gray. Some of the scenes in Spain look cool, but for the most part, it's just the same two colors. It's very unappealing to look at. Even the stuff that's actually in the games was done horribly. They even found a way to screw up the Leap of Faith, which I didn't even think was possible. The ending was remarkably stupid, which is especially bad when one considers that this movie is in fact part of the Assassin's Creed canon. All in all, it's just another entry in the list of failed game-to-movie adaptations.