Assassin’s Creed (2016) Review

Time: 115 Minutes
Age Rating: Violence and Offensive Language
Cast:
Michael Fassbender as Callum “Cal” Lynch and Aguilar de Nerha
Marion Cotillard as Dr. Sofia Rikkin
Jeremy Irons as Alan Rikkin
Brendan Gleeson as Joseph Lynch
Charlotte Rampling as Ellen Kaye
Michael K. Williams as Moussa
Denis Ménochet as McGowen
Ariane Labed as Maria
Director: Justin Kurzel

Cal Lynch (Michael Fassbender) travels back in time to 15th-century Spain through a revolutionary technology that unlocks the genetic memories contained in his DNA. There, he lives out the experiences of Aguilar de Nerha, a distant relative who’s also a member of the Assassins, a secret society that fights to protect free will from the power-hungry Templar Order. Transformed by the past, Cal begins to gain the knowledge and physical skills necessary to battle the oppressive organization in the present.

Assassin’s Creed was one of my most anticipated films of 2016, which was unusual because that (along with Warcraft) was a video game movie. I wasn’t just curious because I liked the video games. It had some great talent involved, with Macbeth 2015 director Justin Kurzel and actors like Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard involved. It could’ve been something special, but watching this movie reminded me to never get excited for video game movies, because 95% of them won’t be good. Assassins Creed is not terrible and is just okay but it’s a barely an above average flick and is ultimately wasted potential.

I liked the Assassins Creed games but that didn’t improve my enjoyment of the movie. I am glad that they tried a different story within the Assassins Creed universe instead of trying to replicate use the story and characters from a game but it didn’t really change much. It is surprising how little I cared about the plot, its really boring during most of it. One of the biggest worries about the movie is that most of the time the movie would take place in modern day in this prison of sorts, and only some of the time is spent with Michael Fassbender as his ancestor as an assassin. Unfortunately that’s the case for the movie. As for how much time we actually spend in the flashbacks, from what I can remember there were only 3 to 4 sequences, and they were for action scenes. The prison sequences aren’t interesting at all and really drag. The characters also aren’t interesting, the only reason you’re giving them a chance is because many of the actors you recognise as being great in other roles. I personally couldn’t recall anything about the characters. The movie seems to have ended on a point for it to be open to sequels that are never going to be made. Despite it being under a couple of hours long, the movie really drags from start to finish, it almost takes real effort to make all the ideas of the Assassins boring in a movie.

This movie does have a lot of great actors, Michael Fassbender, Marion Cotillard, Jeremy Irons, Brendan Gleeson, Michael Kenneth Williams. You can see them doing well in their roles but their roles are incredibly limited because of how underdeveloped their characters and there’s not much really that they do. Aside from a random scene of Michael Fassbender going nuts and singing about how he’s crazy, there’s nothing particularly memorable about the performances. Even if Jeremy Irons went to Dungeon and Dragons levels of crazy that would’ve added some level of entertainment to the movie.

The direction by Justin Kurzel a lot of the time was really good, the action sequences were nice to watch and the cinematography was pretty good. The problem is that I was just not interested in the story and so felt bored a lot of the time, even during the well done action scenes. I don’t really get why the violence was bloodless, the Assassins Creed games weren’t bloodfests but they had blood, adding blood would’ve spiced the scenes up a bit. It was no doubt done in order to increase the box office and given the state and reception of the movie, it really needed all the money it could get, so maybe it was a wise decision. The score by Jed Kurzel was also really good.

Assassin’s Creed is still better than most video game movies but that isn’t really saying a lot as most of them are terrible. It is nice seeing these great actors give okay performance and watching a lot of the action scenes. But it is so difficult to care about what’s going on that it diffuses a lot of the decent aspects of the film. I don’t know if you would be interested in the movie, even if you liked the Assassins Creed games. I guess if you’re somewhat curious about this movie, check it out if you’ve got nothing better to watch, otherwise you’re not missing much.

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