Runtime: 1hr 55min
Director: Justin Kurzel
Release Date: 1st January 2017
Rating: 12A (UK), PG-13 (US)
The video game franchises' movie adaptation manages to convey a less interesting plot than the games themselves; Fassbender was very much an overqualified actor for this role.
The Assassin's Creed franchise has always been plot driven - alluding to apocalyptic storytelling about Mayan influence, templar rule and long-line ancestry of assassins. When converted into a movie, one would expect this to enhance the detail as much as the story can muster - sadly this couldn't be further from the truth.
If there is one thing I could compliment about Assassin's Creed, it's that it put in a great deal of effort in remaining true to the franchise. Anyone who has seen or played the video games will see that Michael Fassbender does look exactly like one of the assassins, there is mention of many important plot details from the games such as the Apple of Eden and the Templars, and many of the camera shots are designed to look like the games did. Too often has a video game to film adaptation completely lost all relevance of its original plot: Doom, Resident Evil and Street Fighter to name but a few, yet Assassin's Creed has managed to remain true to its brand. This, however, comes at a great cost - which is completely detrimental to the overall film quality. The camera shots during action scenes are genuinely awkward and jarring, making it difficult to actually focus on what is happening in front of your eyes, and the mention of important items in the games felt more like a checklist of things the director was required to mention rather than adding relevance to the plot: the assassins did cite the Assassin's Creed for example, but there was no given reason as to how the vow "nothing is true; everything is permitted" relates to the assassins in the plot.
The plot follows main character Cal Lynch (Fassbender) and his spanish ancestor Aguilar, who Lynch can access the memories of through the use of a device known as the Animus - another callback to the video game series - where Lynch will re-animate moments from his ancestor's informative past. Lynch gains access to the animus through an organisation known as Abstergo, who save Lynch from being sentenced to death and contain him in a facility to extract information from Aguilar's life using the animus. Of course, Abstergo are gaining this information to use maliciously, and to ultimately control the will of humanity by finding the Apple of Eden within Aguilar's memories, which has the ability to control human nature.
Now, a similar story does take place during the games, but it takes up until at least Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood (the third game in the series) to fully explain all of this - the Apple of Eden is only revealed in the last act of the first game - whereas the film attempts to cram as much of this information in at one time, so it is likely anyone watching who has never played the games can't keep up or feel that the story is rushed: which is exactly the case.
Dramatic moments during the film do not feel as substantial as they are intended because every part of the film tries to add a new twist constantly: particularly the ending, which is supposed to be a surprising cliffhanger, yet I found myself not caring about any of the characters or their motives at all by the bitter end; if every moment is meant to be dramatic in the movie, then nothing stands out as intended.
The acting quality is also not great - Sofia (Marion Cotillard) is the leading scientist on the Animus project, and Cotillard clearly tried her best to work with the material she was given, however her characters' permanent expression was always worried, making Cotillard incredibly underused. Essentially any actor could have played Fassbender's role(s); Lynch was incredibly bland, and Aguilar had barely any dialogue (and since he was also played by Fassbender, he didn't look like a spaniard as he was meant to) - unlike in the games where main character Desmond's ancestors were completely different people and did not look exactly like him.
Overall, Assassin's Creed would definitely not be on my watchlist, and it is riddled with faults. The plot does clearly open up for a sequel, which will need to step up its quality in order to make me even vaguely interested.
2/10
