Assassin’s Creed is such an incredible failure that any measure of good will that I would have given it due to the fact that it was made by the people who made last year’s Macbeth (my #8 of last year, and a reason for Shakespeare scholars to think I don’t have good taste). I’m one to give films a great sense of leeway if the actors and director bring an artistic clout to them because films do not exist in a vacuum. The presence of two of what may be the best actors of all time, and the director of Macbeth is enough to make me bow down and let plenty go over my head (even if I don’t objectively do so), but Assassin’s Creed is such a horrible, rotting tease of a misfocused film that any goodwill that it had with me was spent within the first hour. For a little context, the film is about a young man named Calum Lynch (Michael Fassbender), who is executed. He is soon revived in a facility where a scientist (Marion Cotillard) conscripts him to help her find the mythical “Apple of Eden” so she can CURE VIOLENCE. Yeah, you heard that right, the villain wants to cure violence. Doesn’t sound too bad, until you see that all of this is delivered in exposition that Fassbender and Cotillard can’t even save and that the dynamic it creates for the assassins is one of a toxic fake edginess that never appeared in the Romanticism of their actions in the games. Anyway, Calum is put into GLADOS from Portal and is transported back in time to the feelings of his ancestor, as he experiences events that lead to the finding of the Apple of Eden. I have played a lot of the Assassin’s Creed games and the misfocus of the screenplay in baffling. Assassin’s Creed, for better or worse, to me at least was never about building a layered, complex story. It was about the player's ability to explore a bygone and fascinating period of history, and that’s where this film drops the ball royally. Not that simply this focus could truly ruin a movie (I mean a focus on the more violent and simple plot points of Macbeth made for a great movie) but because the focus is on plot points that are so thuddingly stupid it can’t help but feel like it’s robbing you of a better movie. This becomes hugely clear when the movie actually cuts back into the Spanish Inquisition, where the Kurzel can actually cut loose. He’s not afforded the heavy carnage that he displayed in Macbeth but the action is consistently center framed and not as hard to see as in many other films. The setting though is what makes this part of the movie. There’s burnings at the stake and black knights and sultans and that’s all pretty cool, if only the movie had not kept cutting back to the modern day and not letting the audience get our excitement out to the Gladiator type stuff. Justin Kurzel, Michael Fassbender, and Marion Cotillard are all reliably doing their jobs, but they can’t even salvage how bad this movie gets. The first act is ok and the second is sorely out of focus but at least has the gall to call its own stupidity, but the third makes you think all three of these players have given up. Jeremy Irons can’t even be great in this. This is a movie that teases you with the sweep of its Inquisition setting but never lets the audience truly explore that more interesting aspect. This is a film of horrid miscalculation, stay home and play the stunning games. Assassin's Creed get a 3 out of 10.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Archive
December 2017
CategoriesAuthorHello welcome to FilmAnalyst. My name is Stephen Tronicek, and I really like movies. This is a way to get my opinions out to people. Thank you for visiting. |