Review: Assassin's Creed
Saturday, December 24, 2016 at 11:27AM by Eric Blume
A movie doesn’t necessarily have to make sense to succeed. Many of us are still mystified by the red pill and the blue pill and The Matrix but that film has such force and style that subtleties of plot were insignificant. Assassin’s Creed makes less than zero sense, and mere mortals could not possibly explain the plot It has something to do with the Spanish Inquisition, a descendant of an elite group of assassins, evil scientists, and the acquisition of the Apple of Eden, since the Holy Grail and Ark of the Covenant have been claimed elsewhere in better movies.
The confusing mechanics of this potboiler wouldn’t matter much if the film delivered on action sequences, compelling characters, or overall tension. Unfortunately director Justin Kerzel seems overwhelmed by the entire enterprise, and buckles under the seriousness of the effort. This is saying a lot, because last year Kerzel directed MacBeth, and his great lead actors from that film, Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard, are back on this picture...
Kerzel didn’t seem intimated by that imposing classical text, and in fact stripped it bare and burrowed down in iy. He pushed Fassbender and Cotillard towards primal emotions and with cinematographer Adam Arkapaw found a foggy, soupy visual look that heightened the emptiness and doom.
Unfortunately, that same creative team have replicated their formula almost exactly but Assassin’s Creed is such a heavy-handed gumbo that everyone sinks. Unlike MacBeth, there’s no purity of feeling underneath and the text just can't support the humorless weight. The emotions are video-game-level deep. For two of the most brilliant actors alive, there’s not only no subtext to play, there’s barely anything surface to play.
We hop back and forth between present and past in 1492 Spain (and are we supposed to be surprised when Christopher Colombus factors in?), and we’re somehow plunged into the past by some device known as the Animus (maybe?) and Fassbender’s memory is merged with that of his ancestor back in Seville (maybe?). Most of the action sequences are filmed in a fog of smoke, so we’re never quite sure what’s happening at any given moment. The big set piece, a rooftop chase during the 1492 portion, is one of those now cliché, endless sequences where two people have hundreds of people with weapons and terrible aim shooting after them, from which they escape scot-free. During that sequence, the editing is so frenetic, and the costuming so similar from character to character, that the naked eye cannot detect who is who and what is happening. This wouldn't be as huge problem if the entire situation weren’t so yawn-inducing.
It's Christmas so let's, uh, end on a positive note -- Good things that can be said about Assassin’s Creed: Kurzel does find a tone that feels true to the videogame world while still feeling filmic; Fassbender spends most of the second half of the picture in only super-fashionable grey sweatpants, and his body is insane; Cotillard has a blissfully chic haircut; Seville hasn’t been the setting of a movie in ages, and it looks great on camera (that is, what was actually shot in Seville). Otherwise, there’s no pulse and no fun to this joyless and heartless, joyless waste of a lot of serious talent. D+
Reader Comments (4)
this review doesn't seem to have anything to do with stating how the movie makes no sense. it more states how its convoluted, but incoherency and confusion are two different things.
It's Kurzel by the way. Not Kerzel.
I'm torn
I don't want to support dreadful film-making aimed to conquer the Box Office
yet I follow Marion and Michael' s careers
Should I pay to watch this shit?
Yavor: No. Gamers barely give this franchise the time of day any more when it's interactive. Blame a stalled myth arc (it basically stopped after 2012) and a couple of disastrous launches after that arc stalled.