Should you watch it at all? OK.
Should you watch this if it’s free? OK, unless you dislike the “Assassin’s Creed” franchise.
Score: 1.7/5
Secret ending? No.
Running time: 116 minutes (~2 hours), but the credits are incredibly long
“Assassin’s Creed” is a science fiction action adventure that’s based on the game series of the same name.
The last descendant of an ancient bloodline is sent to relive his ancestor’s past in order to discover the location of a legendary artifact, and he gains parkour and fighting skills in the process. However, he soon discovers that this puts him at the centre of a war that has lasted since the beginning of human history, and that not everything is as it seems.
It stars Michael Fassbender (Callum Lynch/Aguilar de Nerha), Marion Cotillard (Sophia Rikkin), and Jeremy Irons (Alan Rikkin). It is rated PG-13.
“Assassin’s Creed” has been plagued with misfortune ever since that first trailer came out, but most (including me) had high expectations for it. After all, it’s an action-packed film filled with mad stunts and crazy acrobatic feats, like a real life Mario Run. What could go wrong?
As it turns out, plenty. You can see how it had its roots in a video game, and it’s a novel concept, for sure. But the execution was fraught with strange decisions, resulting in a beloved franchise becoming… not so beloved.
Highlights
Feels like a video game
Callum (Michael Fassbender) starts out with no skills or items, and ends the game movie with the ability to fight, make impossible leaps, an assassin’s outfit, an assassin’s blade, a bow and some arrows, and two companions. Each item is strategically handed to him at a different stage scene in the film that eventually equips him with all that he needs to face the final boss antagonist of “Assassin’s Creed”.
It’s that transparent, and if you’re a fan of the series, you’d probably delight in seeing the “Assassin’s Creed” game that’s based on this movie that’s based on the first game.
Letdowns
Washed out colours
In terms of colour grading, this has to be one of the dullest movies made. Day and night scenes are all washed out as their colours fuse into this confusing amalgam that’s made even blurrier with smoke effects, other superimposed images, and lens flares. The colours actually dampen your excitement and make an already unexciting film even less so. I had to look up Justin Kurzel (the director) and check if he’s colour blind because I certainly thought I was when I watched the film.
He isn’t.
Constant reminder that there’s a stuntman
In character, and story-wise, it makes sense that the assassin Aguilar would wear a hood to hide his identity and shield his eyes from the sun. But in the film, the fact that Aguilar performs most, if not all of his stunts hooded just hammers home the fact that it’s a stuntman doing all that, and not the character himself. There’s a reason why Iron Man blithely goes around without his helmet in recent Marvel films, to avoid this “Assassin’s Creed” situation.
Plot progression is opaque
Early on, it’s explained that the protagonist’s quest is to find the location of a particular MacGuffin that was lost in the past, which is why he keeps making the life-threatening journey into his ancestor’s memories to find out where it’s kept. The problem is that we don’t see how his actions or the information he’s gleaned build toward this goal. It’s a series of misadventures in the past where he goes around doing whatever an assassin does until suddenly, he’s got what he needs.
You could just watch the first and last ten minutes of the film and you wouldn’t have trouble following anything.
Fight choreography looks very obvious
Aguilar’s fighting skills are unmatched, as evidenced by the fact that they slaughter everyone in their path effortlessly. Fight scenes are always enjoyable to watch, but there’s no-one who even remotely poses a challenge. At most, Aguilar has some blood stains around his mouth. Without tension or the risk of failing, the fights are meaningless.
So the fights end up feeling extremely choreographed and artificial, to the point that it looks like a stylised dance (which it is, in reality), rather than an exciting physical conflict.
“Assassin’s Creed” is a mess of bad decisions.
“Assassin’s Creed” opens in cinemas:
– 22 December, 2016 (Singapore)
– 22 December, 2016 (Malaysia)
– 17 January, 2017 (Philippines)
This article was also published on Yahoo!.
Marcus Goh is a Singapore television scriptwriter. He’s also a Transformers enthusiast and avid pop culture scholar. He Tweets/Instagrams at Optimarcus and writes at marcusgohmarcusgoh.com. The views expressed are his own.
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