Now streaming on HBO Go/Now
Director: Justin Kurzel
Starring: Michael Fassbender, Marion Cotillard
Michael Fassbender plays Cal Lynch, a death row inmate bailed out of his predicament by an evil corporation known (and familiar to gamers) as Abstergo. They introduce the animus, the key to the AC games, a contraption into which you plug in a present day human, and it allows them to access memories belonging to their ancestors. The animus’ owners, a father-daughter pair from Abstergo played by Jeremy Irons & Marion Cotillard, need Cal to access the memories of one ancestor. At the risk of continuing what is becoming an exceedingly dumb paragraph, this ancestor is an Assassin (big A means he’s official), and he may have knowledge of an artifact known as the Apple of Eden. Cotillard want the Apple because it mystically may be able to remove the will to commit violence from the human spirit. Irons wants it for more nefarious reasons, explained by the fact that, well, someone has to be the bad guy.
All of that nonsense is in line with the setup in the games. It’s all just silliness to get to the meat of what makes AC games such fun- exploring old cities with beautiful vistas, using stealth to assassinate evildoers, and… climbing. In early AC games, I always sought out the viewpoints first – the spires on churches or ledges on buildings that provided dramatically gorgeous panoramic views of the city. That moment, as the camera sweeps around you, was a stunning moment for gamers. You felt transported to that place, whether it was Third Crusade Damascus, 15th century Venice, or pre-Revolution Boston.
The film chooses 1492 Spain as its historical locale. Unfortunately, this was apparently during Spain’s memorable Fucking Everything Is On Fire period, so instead of gorgeous vistas, we get a generic, smoky, dark city. He does some climbing, but it’s frenetic and on the run. There’s some assassinating, but there’s hardly enough time spent figuring out why this life needed taking. It’s not good when a video game assassination quest is more fleshed out plotwise than a movie, but in the original 2007 game, I at least always understood why these characters needed to die.
The film spends too much time talking about Cal’s backstory and letting Cotillard settle into that good girl working for bad people trope. It’s all boring. And worst of all, in those moments where a fight in old Spain verges on catching your attention, the movie cuts back to shots of Fassbender in the animus, just punching air and doing imaginary parkour like it’s the world’s worst rhythmic gymnastics routine. It kills your sense of being in the scene with his ancestor, and it’s all to get back to the far more boring present day story.
Fassbender, Cotillard, Irons, and castmates Michael K. Williams, Brendan Gleeson, and Charlotte Rampling are all incredibly talented pros, and they elevate this drivel to a level higher than it probably deserves. Even if some of their characters suck, their performances don’t. Rampling even manages to give a pretty commanding performance during her brief time on screen.
Assassin’s Creed is, remarkably, in the upper echelon of video game movies, but that unfortunately doesn’t make it good or worthwhile. It was like watching a movie made from a first draft. There are elements that could have worked, but it needed more revisions and care than the filmmakers put into it.