Review Roundup: Assassin’s Creed is yet another dull, lifeless video game movie

We've been waiting to see a live action Assassin's Creed movie for nearly a decade. It's been in development for such a long time with different cast members and directors attached that we could've probably seen a full trilogy by now.

The movie is finally out this week (despite there not being a new annual Assassin's Creed game for the first time in 7 years) and the reviews are in… and they don't have very many nice things to say. The movie that many hoped to change the state of video game movies is supposedly pretty bad! The movie has a 17% rating on Rotten Tomatoes at the time of writing this with only 4 positive reviews out of the 23 total reviews. It'll be interesting to see if the studio goes through with its plans for a sequel.

Below you'll find excerpts from a number of reviews both positive and negative (but mostly negative).

The Hollywood Reporter

Assassin’s Creed is resolutely stone-faced, ditching the humdrum quips that are par for the course in today's blockbusters. But this is almost two hours of convoluted hokum that might have benefited from a few self-deflating jabs. "What the f— is going on," wonders Fassbender at one point. If only you could discern the shadow of a wink.

No score

Collider

Minus the material with Aguilar and Maria, Assassin’s Creed operates in cruise control. A similar sequence of events happens over and over again, and all you can do is just sit back and look at the pretty picture. And yes, Assassin’s Creed often does look fantastic, especially the costume design and the chase sequences that take place in the 15th Century. But all the riveting roof-top running and hand-to-hand combat in the world won’t make a movie worthwhile if you don’t give a damn about the characters.

Grade: C

The Verge

There’s inevitably a hint of shameless money-grab to any film adaptation of a ludicrously popular video game franchise, especially one that specifically appeals to people who must uncover every secret in the mythos. Still, Assassin’s Creed’s creators have the courage to always take themselves seriously, even when they’re working with material that sounds fundamentally silly. There’s no great leap of faith in Assassin’s Creed, but a surprising amount of the time, it at least finds steady footing.

No score

IGN

Though it’s bolstered by some glorious action sequences and a stellar cast that really gives us their all, the lack of any levity whatsoever in Assassin's Creed amounts to a soulless experience that wastes its potential.

As soon as it’s back to the grim monotony of Callum and co, however, any inkling of life dies. As Assassin’s Creed struggles towards its conclusion – and a nonsensical heel turn from a major character – one can’t help but feel disappointed in a film that got the style of the series so right, yet its heart so wrong.

6.5/10

IndieWire

Declaring “Assassin’s Creed” to be the best video game movie ever made is the kind of backhanded compliment that sounds like hyperbole, but the description fits the bill on both counts. Regardless of what you call this peculiar, arrestingly uninviting nonsense, the fact of the matter is that it’s the only blockbuster of 2016 that left me desperate for a sequel.

Grade: B-

Slant

Ultimately, the film itself seems desynchronized: the music in an early horseback chase misses the beat of the action; the actors—namely Brendan Gleeson and Charlotte Rampling—seem stiffer than any of the characters from the video-game series; and the plot is filled with holes given that the assassins are inexplicably allowed free rein of their prison. The compression of a lengthy video game into an under-two-hour film also works against the plot: Fassbender does his best to sell that his character is going crazy once Callum begins to suffer the hallucinatory side effects of the Animus—“the bleeding effect”—but is given only a single scene in which to do so. Kurzel's less-than-daring direction doesn't help either: Instead of overlapping the past and present in a way that makes one question reality (think Inception or Doctor Strange), the moment when Callum spars with a piss-poor CGI phantom of Aguilar shows only how insubstantial both narratives are.

Such nonsense plotting and cheap effects are why the film's biggest laugh comes from its most self-deprecating line, when Callum stares directly at the audience and asks, “What the fuck is going on?” Instead of distracting audiences with more of the film's action, Assassin's Creed unwisely attempts to explain it. In the process, the film forgets the very creed the assassins keep repeating: “Nothing is true, everything is permitted.”

0.5/4 stars

Assassin's Creed releases December 21st, 2016.