Assassin's Creed is Dead on Arrival

So much ARGHHHHHHH, Callum (Fassbender)! 

Skip It: Assassin's Creed is Dead on Arrival   

Half a star. So much disappoint.

Michael Fassbender’s acting chops weren’t enough to salvage Assassin’s Creed, the adaptation of the immensely popular Ubisoft series of the same name. It doesn’t take long to realize the action-adventure that characterizes the video game series is glaringly absent here. Being on a huge theatre screen and featuring characters decked out in elaborate costumes does not a movie plot make! This isn’t a cloak-and-dagger historical romp. Instead Assassin’s Creed is a convoluted display that fails on all counts. The plot is positively pathetic and riddled with holes. It’s a hodgepodge of different video game storylines, populated by unlikable one-dimensional characters and lazy special effects, all mashed up together and hurled back to us without any kind of logic. If you’re not a gamer or a fan of the video games get ready to be clueless about what the heck is happening about 95% of the time. To buy the ridiculous fantasy we’re sold in Assassin’s Creed you’d have be totally brain dead. Welp.

One of the main quests Assassin’s Creed’s plot revolves around is seeking the Apple of Eden. This isn’t just any crispy, juicy fruit plucked off an orchard. Instead, this apple is a special snowflake. This apple is, as the characters express time and time again in grave tones: everything. This humble little fruit has the genetic code for free will and if it’s taken by the Templars, a shady group of no-gooders, the entire world will be in ruins in no time. Mortal peril? Check.

"One jump ahead of the bread line! One swing ahead of the sword!" 

A high-tech secret organization in Madrid, Spain, (so much white! So much shiny!) has been rounding up “descendants” from the Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood: an elite band of fighters who uhhh protected humanity and fought the Templars and other leeches. Once they’ve got these hapless men and women in their clutches….I mean errr….residing in their uhmmm creepy underground bunker that is most definitely hiding some bigger, darker, secret (because CLICHES, they are king here. And queen…) the lead scientists try to gather the whereabouts of the apple with a new kind of experimental procedure.

Memory therapy. The idea is to hook up the unwitting victim, thirsty volunteer, or just plain coconuts and bananas person into some massive metal claw called the Animus. This isn’t The Claw that mystifies and terrifies the little green aliens at Planet Pizza in Toy Story. This doodad has the ability to tap into the brain of whatever person it’s hooked up to and play back memories from lives they’ve lived. But not just any life, their lives as assassins in The Brotherhood. I’m not really sure how women work into the equation, and they’re in rather short supply from start to finish. The main female character Sofia,( Marion Cotillard) is a beautiful scientist who we’re expected to believe is brilliant and ambitious and deeply intelligent.

Nameless Descendant and Callum working their generic white hospital clothes!

Instead she’s played by Cotillard as a very one-note character. She’s not convincingly brainy or any one worth getting hyped up over or invested in. But uh… considering most of the characters, the other “descendants” that prowl around the compound of the organization, basically just scowl, exercise or wander aimlessly (while looking menacing, ‘natch.) and don’t even have names let alone a pinch of personality, Sofia’s character by association looks more rounded. In actuality the girl is flat as a pancake and always parroting canned dialogue.

You know you’re in the danger zone with a movie when the main character is entirely unlikable or disgracefully one-dimensional. Callum Lynch, is the “hero” we’re supposed to root for and the point of view that we follow along with. It’s such a disappointment that even Michael Fassbender couldn’t breathe life into this role. Callum is a convicted criminal, known for his aggression, something that started when he was a little kid he had daddy issues. (Again, Check!) On death row for a suspected murder, Callum is spirited away from the electric chair by Sofia, who claims that he’s the key to saving the world. By finding the special snowflake Apple of Eden. Because, as it turns out, Cal is a special snowflake assassin himself-- the direct descendant of Aguilar -- one of the best of the best that we’re shown is a BAMF, in the way that only generic action movies can show us! Slashing stabbing and scampering up buildings and across dusty roof tops in shadowy black cloaks. Oh and making out with beautiful beautiful women. Because the sex. During the entire run time of this debacle we never once get to truly meet Aguilar and Callum. Both lack any and all personality, except for Cal’s explosive rage, his constant snarl of fury, and his fisticuffs. Toxic masculinity maybe? Weak character writing? An emphasis on action for actions sake? How about all three?!

Aguilar (Fassbender) is dressed to impress.

Another disappointing character is Joseph Lynch, Cal’s “damaged” daddy, who also happens to be a prisoner...I mean err….GUEST of the Sketchy Memory Therapy Organization. Played by Brandon Gleeson, best known as ex-auror Alastor “Mad-Eye” Moody in the Harry Potter franchise, he’s grossly underused in Assassin’s Creed and hits the chopping block after a mere five minutes of airtime. The animosity his son feels for him isn’t expressed and we’re not privy to seeing any tension between the two. Talk about missed opportunity.

The fantasy in the world of Assassin’s Creed  is shallow as a kiddie pool. Or a puddle. Forget the time travel through various eras in history: one of the hallmarks of the video game series. Assassin’s Creed spits us out in the period of the Spanish Inquisition. It’s a time that should be charged with paranoia, rage and constant disarray. Instead, it’s just massive crowds screaming and rioting, a kind of generic chaos that’s also seen in disaster and apocalypse movies. The plot in Assassin’s Creed is lacking and the filming isn’t particularly easy on the eyes either. It’s faded and blurry and nondescript as the repetitive fight scenes break out time and time again. It becomes a bore to watch each brawl when every hit that lands (or doesn’t) is a kind of rinse-lather-repeat routine. The camerawork is sloppy as well. The Blair Witch level shaky cameras that appear in the memory lapses, and the breakneck speed and relying on excessive use of shadows and quickly angled shots, are obviously an attempt to compensate for shoddy combat moves with weak and lazy choreographing. Filmmakers, you’re doing it wrong.

What's this supposed to be? Some BDSM Tarzan/Jane thing!?

Assassin’s Creed is not an entertaining spectacle nor does it distinguish itself in anyway from even the most of the derivative and cliched action-adventure films. There are far too many plot holes and the science and logic, even FANTASY level, is absent! How are the memories from the past lives of Assassins in the Brotherhood captured in the first place? How does the organization get their DNA? And how the hell are the baddie Templar's able to track down these descendants and keep them captive? Perhaps the gravest cinema sin (ha) of all is that Assassin’s Creed ends on a cliffhanger. Eww. Cocky much?  

Towards the finale one of the head Templar geezer’s bitterly remarks that, “Mankind cannot be redeemed,” it’s an observation that also applies to the dead-on-arrival mess that is Assassin’s Creed.

all images from IMDB