Games allow you as a gamer to take control of another character who can perform actions which sometimes would be impossible in the real world. That’s also the case for the Assasin’s Creed games, in which you are a member of secret group travelling through old cities, running with parcours skills across rooftops to fight the Templars. As not all games are set at the same time it introduced the element of the “present”, where a machine (the Animus) is used to allow the main character to jump into the past in order to find artefacts who have a link to the creation story which can influence humanity. With popular game series it seem inevitable that they are turned into movies and unfortunately history has shown it almost always ends up being disappointing (just think of the Warcraft movie last year). Is this one different?
Callum (Michael Fassbender) is a convicted killer who is sentenced to death. After receiving the lethal injection in the US, he wakes up in Madrid the next day in a building owned by the Abstergo Foundation. They tell him that he has a direct link with the final person who had the apple (the one from Adam and Eve) in his possession and that it is up to him to find him by using the Animus. He is hooked up and transported back to the year 1492 and experiences what his direct forefather went through, Aguilar de Nerha (part of the Assassins), in order to stop the Templars getting power to control the whole world.
The biggest issue with Assassin’s Creed is that the viewer doesn’t have any control over Aguilar, which is also the case for Callum. The scientist which explains everything to him, Sofia (Marion Cotillard), tells him that he isn’t able to change anything. Which means that he is a passive witness of the actions of his forefather while being strapped onto some sort of extreme 4D cinema seat. He can’t change events, resulting in a movie which doesn’t have any suspense. And although Andalusia from the 15th century has been realised nicely by CGI, so much smoke has been added to the scenery that you start wondering if the people living there aren’t constantly coughing or dying from the lack of oxygen.
The action scenes are often very quick to change shots, resulting in the viewer losing track of things. Besides the events in the past there is also something brewing inside the Abstergo Foundation, for which several well-known actors are introduced who don’t get much to do, but whose characters are so paper-thin that they don’t add anything to the story. Assassin’s Creed makes an attempt to turn a game into a successful movie, it fails. The sense of freedom and making your own choices is something which this movie lacks and which is impossible to translate, made worse by the main character also just being a witness. If you are looking for adventure though it is better to play one of the games than to watch this.
big disappointment indeed