Film Reviews

Assassin’s Creed (2016)

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asscreed

Starring: Michael Fassbender, Marion Cotillard, Jeremy Irons

Director: Justin Kurzel

Game adaptations are always a gamble for the movie goer. They so often are less exciting than the material they base themselves on. If you love the game their based on, they can bastardise the things you love about the game, and if you’ve never played the game, they can be incomprehensible.

In this film Callum (Fassbender) is on death row, but he wakes from his execution to find that a mysterious organisation is offering him a chance at redemption if her enters their machine, a machine which can access his genetic memories and take him back into the body of his ancestor who was a member of the Assassin’s Creed. But their plan is to find out what his ancestor did with the a special and very powerful biblical artifact. Are their intentions honorable? Which side should Callum be on? The strange organisation or that of the other captures prisoners?

Taking on the Assassin’s Creed story is no small task, but it’s such a lavish, lush game, it seems like it wouldn’t be an impossible task. There are ample places that you can take it and it’s full of history, mystery and leaping off buildings.

Bring on Australian director Justin Kurzel, who worked with Fassbender and Cotillard on a well received Macbeth and you have potential. Reteamed here, and you get something quite similar: a beautifully shot rendition that’s high on budget and seriousness but does little that’s that original or clever when you look beyond the surface.

Fight scenes in this film usually involve cut backs to the machine that regresses, so that you’re never really immersed in the action. Marion Cotillard as the doctor who is regressing Callum seems to just exist to stand by and drop catch phrases from the game. And Fassbender feels underdeveloped for some reason. It feels like too much takes place in the modern world, there are too many characters, too much cheese, and not enough plot, considering that there’s a mystery at the heart of the film.

All in all, it’s pretty much what you get with most game adaptations, but it’s cool to see some of the visuals brought to life.

See It If: you like Fassbender or are a Kurzel fan, people who love the game will most likely be disappointed.

19 thoughts on “Assassin’s Creed (2016)”

  2. You nailed the most annoying thing about the film, without which it would have been far better: The continuous interruptions of the scenes where Callum is in the animus to show you the stupid special effects of the machine. Instead of focusing on telling a good story (like Star Wars), the director is showing off special effects (like Star Trek, the Motion Picture).

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  7. I used to play videogames a lot ( 40 hours plus per week, no not kidding here), but I stopped playing about 6 years ago. I have played Assassins’s Creed, but never really got into it. That said, I did like the backstory for this game and always thought it could make a cool movie. After reading your review I will check it out. I usually like movies based on videogames, even though some of them are quite bad. And Fassbender being in it, is also a very good reason. As usual a terrific review 😊

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  8. I am a massive fan of the games. I did not hate this movie. I acknowledge that it was no where near perfect and played around with the source material but I loved the scenes in the past and the cast were fantastic. The fact they spoke Spanish was great. I gave it a 6/10

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