1 Year 100 Reviews — Assassin’s Creed
When I first heard that there was an Assassin’s Creed movie in the works, I thought “Finally, a video game movie that will break the curse of failure before it”. I mean, how could this kind of project fail? Other similar movies already exist and have been phenomenally successful: The Da Vinci Code series, National Treasure, heck, even Indiana Jones has a lot of elements in common with Assassin’s Creed. Add in pseudo-ninjas, amazing physical feats, and some fantastical sci-fi elements and the formula should have equaled blockbuster success.
How could they have gotten it so wrong!?
The first entry in the video game series won gamers over with its novel use of parkour, unconventional modern-day framing device, and meticulous recreation of the Holy Land circa the 3rd crusade. But, what made the franchise a powerhouse of the games industry was its memorable protagonist who was introduced in the second game, Ezio Auditore da Firenze. See, what the first game lacked was a real sense of heart — a protagonist you could actually care about. And the franchise has yet to produce another likable main character ever since, leading to incrementally waning sales figures as each new entry is released.
So, all this movie had to do was chose a memorable time period, visually interesting locations, lots of parkour and hand-to-hand combat, a dose of supernatural elements, and a main character whose charisma and conflict makes audiences fall in love.
Well, they chose an interesting time period… and that’s about it.
As stated before, one of the biggest draws of the games is the opportunity to traverse painstakingly accurate recreations of famous cities from famous time periods, wherein you can treat historical landmarks like you own personal jungle gym. While the Spanish Inquisition works as a recognizable historical period, it just does not work aesthetically. Very few landmarks are distinguishable and even fewer are interesting to watch our heroes parkour all over.
But, rather than spend most of the movie in that time period, we waste most of it in the modern day. The decision to make the historical Assassins plot a B-Plot will forever confound me. Even in the games the modern stuff was only interesting as a framing device. It justified why the world in the past had all these video game elements, why everyone speaks English, and a bunch of other stuff. But in the movie, the modern day elements jump front and center. Other than that, what we really care about is the adventure in the past.
And if that was not all bad enough, the performances in this are all so bad! Everyone seems completely disinterested about being involved in this project, and most everyone’s lines are either deadpan exposition or confoundingly embarrassing winks to the source material. Marion Cotillard actually whispers in awed, un-ironic reverence the phrase “*Gasp!* the leap of faith”. Average audiences will probably have no idea what she even said, and knowing audiences will be left cringing in their seats.
The most truly remarkable thing about this movie just how ugly it all is. I saw this movie in 2D and the whole thing was so dark that I often lost characters in the shadows of building interiors… despite it being the middle of the day. Not only that, but the past has this brownish-green filter over it and a persistent mist that obfuscates any of the action going on. The present is all grey and blue and desaturated. It is even worse color-correction than the Matrix movies. Presumable these choices were designed to mask horrible CGI, but ends up making the real stuff look fake and the fake stuff look faker. The tragedy in this is that the real stuff all looks great!
This movie is a clear example of a victim of the cutting room. Sometimes, when a studio knows a movie is a pile of garbage they edit it down to its bare bones in a vain attempt to keep it fast-moving enough for people merely interested in the action and hope that they can squeeze out as many viewings as possible before word-of-mouth gets around and completely sinks ticket sales. It is a despicable and common practice, but at least it gets you out of a bad movie sooner.
To be fair, there are a few good things about this movie. The way they redesigned the Animus allowed them to visually show synchronization in an ingenious way. The scenes in the past are genuinely fun to watch and are the highlight of the film. Makes you wonder why they didn’t just build a story around the events of the past and have a modern-day framing device that alludes to an overarching story to be fleshed out in sequels. You know, like what the games did.
The most common complaint is that the movie is too serious. Sure, it could have used a joke or two or a character who is actually fun, but I think this is not the real problem. The real problem is that the movie is completely devoid of any personality. Wisecracks and comic relief won’t fix a movie saturated in ennui.
I really wanted to like Assassin’s Creed. As a former fan of the franchise, I wanted this movie to succeed so badly. And while it is by no means good, it is also not so bad as to elicit any sort of anger. Instead, all I feel is apathy and frustration. I can actually see the visage of a great movie somewhere lost among the color filters and crap CGI. Maybe if it were in the hands of people truly passionate about the source material… I don’t know. All I can say is give this one a skip. Maybe if you are bored and it pops up on TV you can watch it for a bit, but don’t waste your money on this.
C-
Man, this movie has me depressed.
