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“Assassin’s Creed” has become one of the most recognizable gaming franchises of the 21st century. Even people who don’t play video games probably have heard something of the franchise before. Sadly, for many people, that recognition probably comes from the really crappy movie adaptation that came out in 2016. Videogame movie adaptations have practically never worked, but Assassin’s Creed seemed ripe to break the curse by casting Michael (Freaking) Fassbender in the titular role (an underrated movie star). However, it was all smoke and mirrors. Assassins Creed (2016) was just another bad videogame movie, but where did it go wrong?
What Is Assassin’s Creed?
Before going in-depth about what the Assassin’s Creed film is, it’s worthy to relay some background on the original gaming franchise. “Assassin’s Creed” is a sort of historical-fiction-based, action-adventure video game series with some stealth elements (that was a mouthful). The first entry released in 2007 and followed Desmond Miles as he relived the memories of an assassin named Altair, who is also his ancient ancestor from thousands of years ago, through a device called the Animus.
Altair is a member of the Assassin’s Order, a group of highly trained (you guessed it) assassins who “work in the shadows” to preserve free will and thwart a power-hungry and dictatorial organization known as the Templars. The gaming franchise has been immensely successful, spawning numerous sequels with different assassins all over the world and all across time. With a premise already popular with a large subset of people and a source material easily compatible with an adaptation to the screen, it was only a matter of time before “Assassin’s Creed” got a movie, and Assassin’s Creed (2016) was the result. Directed by Justin Kurzel, the film stars Michael Fassbender as Cal Lynch, a descendent of the Assassin Brotherhood.
He’s on trial for murder when members from Abstergo, a Templar-funded scientific division responsible for the creation of the Animus, staged his execution and transports him to their laboratory. Abstergo have been on the lookout for the Apple of Eden, a device of mythical powers and supposedly capable of controlling all of mankind. One of Cal’s ancestors, Aguilar de Nehra, who was active in the Granada War in Andalusia in 1492, is believed to have known the location of this device and, through Cal reliving Aguilar’s memories, Abstergo hopes to find and retrieve the relic, but what Abstergo doesn’t account for is Cal learning the ways of the Assassin and his place in the Brotherhood.
What Assassin’s Creed Gets Right (Well Kind Of)
This movie really doesn’t get much right at all. It really epitomizes a snooze fest. However, even in the most blatantly bad movies, there’s some good to be pulled from the rubble. In this movie, the elements that are decent or had potential are the setting and Michael Fassbender’s performances as Cal Lynch and Aguilar.
The Setting
One of the biggest strengths of the “Assassin’s Creed” franchise is their ability to pick an era of historical significance that also allows the writers enough creative freedom to create a narrative around it, and that seems to have rolled over into the movie. Andalusia (the small, southernmost region of Spain) during the time of the Granada War (spanning from 1482 to 1492) makes for a good backdrop for the historical period of the film.
The terrain and environment of Southern Spain contrast against the architectural styling brought over from the Moors beautifully, and seeing how the history of the war was transpired and how Aguilar’s story wove into that history are pretty interesting. The film carried over a crucial element of the games. It’s really cool to see assassins influence and be involved with historical events and backdrops, which is a strong element of this film.
Michael Fassbender’s Performance
This is where we get into the “kind of” of what the movie got right. Casting Michael Fassbender: A++. His actual performance in this movie: like a C. It’s evident that he’s talented. He’s delivered numerous really understated but brilliantly rendered roles in films like 12 Years a Slave, Inglourious Basterds, Slow West (a personal favorite from A24), and as Magneto in the rebooted X-Men series of the 2010s. He’s demonstrated that he’s got the “it factor” and could totally be a great lead character in this franchise, but that’s not really what happened in Assassin’s Creed.
He’s not completely uninteresting in the role, and it seems he had a vested interest in the film succeeding (he was a producer on the film and did a lot of his own stunt work), but there’s not much for him to do and he doesn’t lift this film up from being just meh.
What Assassin’s Creed Gets Wrong?
Whew, where to start? This movie is a very particular kind of bad. It’s the kind where there aren’t many things that stand out as the “man, that was awful,” kind of bad. However, at the end of the movie, there’s no real resolution, and you feel like you just wasted the past two and half hours. This movie is the empty kind of bad. The credits roll, and a wave of nothingness passes over you. Assassin’s Creed is that kind of bad. The film’s three worst aspects are the poorly edited action scenes, the convoluted plot, and the underdeveloped side characters.
Poorly Edited Action Scenes
This is perhaps the most disappointing aspect of Assassin’s Creed. The “Assassin’s Creed” games are known for their parkour and combat, so for that to be in the film and just not to be captured well feels like a real slap in the face. The strangest part of it all is that the action itself (as in the fight choreography and free running choreography) looks to be okay. It’s just that the footage is so rapidly sped up or spliced with so many cuts that it practically looks unintelligible and is just a complete blur.
It’d also be remiss not to mention that the cutting between Cal in the modern-day and Aguilar in the past doing the same actions (as Cal replicates the movements of his ancestor via the Animus) feels utterly pointless. It’s really distracting and just takes away from any tension to be had with Aguilar’s story.
Convoluted Plot
The plot of Assassin’s Creed is weird. So, Cal is being forced to puppet himself out to Abstergo and relive Aguilar’s memories in the Animus to help them find the Apple of Eden. Okay, cool, but why does the plot also need to highlight Jeremy Irons’ character, Alan Rikkin, the CEO of sorts for Abstergo, having a falling out with the Elders of the Templar Order because they want to shut down Abstergo. Then, that impacts Marion Cotillard’s character, Dr. Sophia Rikkin, the daughter of Alan and lead scientist at Abstergo, into having some identity crisis.
She ultimately sees herself betraying her father and becoming an Assassin with practically no basis for it. Worst of all, the ending involves a revolt by all the Assassin descendants at Abstergo, and it’s barely even hinted at that, as it just happens. There’s just a lot of nonsense going on with this plot when if it were more simple, it could’ve been fine.
Underdeveloped Side Characters
I alluded to it at the end of the last section, but the Assassin descendent revolt at the end of this movie is so far out of the left-field because the audience knows nothing about the other Assassin descendants. Michael K. Williams plays Moussa, Matias Varela plays Emir, Callum Turner plays Nathan, and Michelle H. Lin plays Lin. Those characters comprise the group of Assassin descendants who lead the charge to break Cal out of the Animus room at the end of the movie. These characters fight the Abstergo employees with Cal, and it’s meant to be the big finale.
It’s the climax of the film where the stakes are supposed to be at their highest, but that isn’t possible because there’s no reason to care about any of those characters besides Cal. There’s practically nothing to know about those characters. They each have maybe three or four scenes, and some of them don’t even have lines. They literally exist in the movie to make the final fight, not just Cal vs. a thousand (hyperbole) Abstergo employees, where there’d be no actual chance of him winning. It’s lazy and inexcusable. The side characters in this movie straight up don’t matter until their death scenes in the big final fight.
A Failed Leap Of Faith
Assassin’s Creed had a lot working against it. Videogame movies have a track record of not being very good. That’s kind of just how it goes, but Assassin’s Creed seemed like it could break the mold. The subject material seemed perfect for a movie adaptation. They cast a really talented actor in Michael Fassbender to play the lead, as well as Marion Cotillard and Jeremy Irons in starring roles opposite of Fassbender. The movie had an original setting that was ripe to tell a new “Assassin’s Creed” story in, choosing Andalusia during the Granada War. Everything looked promising, but through really poorly edited action scenes, a convoluted plot, and an utter disregard for developing the side characters, Assassin’s Creed just became another underwhelming videogame movie title.