Assassin's Creed (2016)

Genre

Action | Adventure | Fantasy

Director

Justin Kurzel

Country

USA | France

Cast

Michael Fassbender, Marion Cotillard, Jeremy Irons, Brendan Gleeson, Charlotte Rampling, Michael K. Williams, Ariane Labed, Matias Varela, Michelle Lin, James Sobol Kelly, Denis Ménochet

Storyline

As he explores the memories of his ancestor Aguilar, Callum Lynch (Michael Fassbender) discovers he is a descendant of the secret Assassins society and amasses knowledge and skills to take on the Templar organization in the present day.

Opinion

As someone who occasionally played the Assassin's Creed games, and especially as an avid fan of Michael Fassbender, I was really looking forward to this film. Unfortunately films based on video games usually end up being terrible. That's not subjective, that's a fact. Just like "Assassin's Creed" being a disappointment. It's not terrible, but it isn't either the film I wanted to see.

The biggest problem with this film is the writing. The plot was exclusively written for the film, but the present day part is very similar to that of the first Assassin's Creed, which leads me to wonder why on earth would one try to write a new story when you can simply use the one already existing, especially if you are going to focus on the similar part, which by the way was the most boring part in the game and made the first part of the film quite tedious.

The past was supposed to be the exciting part, mostly because it was the original part. Unfortunately it came down to three stages, the capture, the escape and the slaughter, and only focused on the action. 

The characters were another weak link. Cal, the main character, - if you played the game you know him as Derek - has a very little and rushed development. Sophia Rikkin suffers so many characterial changes that leaves you flabbergasted. Not in a good way. Not to mention all the other shallow characters.

But like I said before, "Assassin's Creed" isn't terrible. The action is indeed great, with well choreographed fighting and chasing scenes. Maybe it is too fast paced at time though. The visuals are stunning, and the score is also quite good although sometimes it's too intense.

Finally, the cast is the best thing that could happen to this film. Despite the poor script, Michael Fassbender manages to do a good job both as Cal and his ancestor Aguilar. Marion Cotillard also does a fine job as Sophia Rikkin, and so does Jeremy Irons in the role of Sophia's father. There isn't any great performance, still this is not the kind of film that deserves such good actors since all it does is wasting them.