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| photo courtesy of thenerdstash.com |
Assassin’s Creed is the film adaptation of the immensely popular
video game series of the same name. Video game adaptations have long been
plagued with poor critical reception and lackluster box office results, but Assassin’s Creed was heralded by some as
the movie to break that mold. Those people will be disappointed, because
despite some interesting action, Assassin’s
Creed flounders into a mostly boring experience.
In Assassin’s Creed, two ancient factions continue their long-standing
war over the elusive Apple of Eden. The
Assassins fight to protect and hide the Apple, which holds the code for
controlling errant human impulses—and, therefore, removing free will. In modern
times, the Templars have acquired new technology—the Animus—which allows them
to use modern-day Assassins to relive the memories of their ancestors,
hopefully illuminating the hidden trail of the Apple. The Templars coerce
criminal Callum Lynch, a descendant of Assassins, to use the Animus. It’s up to
Callum to decide whether he will learn to fight for something beyond himself.
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| photo courtesy of businessinsider.com |
It’s a really cool (if
rather complicated) premise for a story. It has fueled a massive game franchise,
allowing each game to be set in different eras and locales. That is, arguably, the
series’ main selling point: its ability to immerse the player in diverse,
wonderfully rendered historical environments. But it’s not a premise that’s
limited to video games; if properly handled, it’s an equally engrossing foundation
for a film.
The finished film
product, however, doesn’t do much to honor that promise. It’s a big case of
what-could-have-been, and Assassin’s
Creed, of all properties, could certainly have been a lot better. It’s fine
(definitely rental material), but a lot more was to be expected, especially
with the involvement of so many talented people.
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| photo courtesy of gamespot.com |
Michael Fassbender and
Marion Cotillard headline the film, and they’re both among the more gifted
stars in Hollywood today. Even they can’t elevate the material. Their
performances are good enough on their own, but everything surrounding the actors
drowns anything worthy they can produce.
The main problem of the
film is that it’s just plain boring for most of the run time. We spend so much
time in gloomy, underground rooms hearing the same lines over and over about
the Apple and violence and expansive philosophical quandaries that get lost
through sheer repetition. It fails to drum up (with only a few exceptions) any
real interest or thrills.
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| photo courtesy of theinsightfulpanda.com |
The filmmakers spend
screen time poorly. The movie could benefit by really investing in either of
the two worlds it inhabits (the modern and the world of 1492). It could easily have
spent all of its time in 1492 and been far more interesting—but that wouldn’t
be Assassin’s Creed. Instead, it
splits time between these very different worlds, leaving the viewer stranded. The
present is gloomy and mostly action-less. The past only shows up for brief
bursts of action, performed by characters we barely know anything about.
Regrettably, the
sequences from the past also leave out an important part of the excitement of
the video games: secrecy and, well, assassination. They heavily favor the
action chase scenes, but omit the inherently tense moments that surround and
inform the action.
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| photo courtesy of superherohype.com |
There’s no real
investment in the main character, Callum Lynch. He’s a violent guy, a criminal,
who has some baggage with his family, and who has to choose whether or not he’ll
align himself with the Assassins brotherhood. The film takes some real stabs at
creating tension, but we ultimately just don’t know enough about Callum to care
about him (or to believe that he suddenly cares about this age-old philosophical
battle). Failure to create sympathy for the protagonist is a death-knell for
any fledgling franchise.
Creed
is also mostly humorless, which is, admittedly, a breath of fresh air in the
Marvel-driven blockbuster environment. But it could do with a little more
levity and a little less self-seriousness. What humor there is peters out without
much of a laugh.
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| photo courtesy of comicbook.com |
There are some struggles
with dialogue. In this respect, Assassin’s
Creed is on par with many modern blockbusters, which tend to give
in-your-face exposition through shoddy dialogue. But Assassin’s Creed seems like it wants to drive home the point by not
only doing poor exposition, but also reiterating it at every chance. It’s as if
the filmmakers used the same principles of video game writing to write this
movie.
Assassin’s Creed does boast, as hinted above, some fairly
interesting action sequences. We get some parkour cross-city rooftop chase
scenes. That’s to be expected, since a unique and scintillating action style is
one of the hallmarks of the video games. Some of that is captured here, but it’s
undercut by lack of real stakes. We could certainly expect a lot more from a
big-budget film. As is, the action scenes are akin to similar scenes from Nolan’s
Batman films, but without the drama, stakes, or far more impressive stunts (it
also bears similarities to Taken or
Daniel Craig’s Bond). It’s not much we haven’t seen before. What’s mystifying
in Assassin’s Creed is that so many
of the pieces are there, but still very little rises above formulaic action tropes.
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| photo courtesy of foxmovies.com |
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