Movie Review: Assassin’s Creed is one of the best video game movies, despite its flaws

For decades, we’ve been searching for faithful video game movie adaptations. Some remain true to the source material, but the plot and acting are so bad that is unforgivable. At this moment, there is no video game movie that I can personally declare a perfect video game movie that I can recommend to both fans and non-gamers. However, Assassin’s Creed almost reaches that mark and is the closest we have to a really great video game movie at the moment.

I never thought this movie would get made due to how much lore and story there is in the Assassin’s Creed games. It’s also been in development for so long that I figured if it did get made it would probably be a disaster. Somehow, this movie ended up being super enjoyable. Although it has some flaws, it’s a faithful adaptation of the games that will leave fans craving more.

Takes the worst part of the games and makes it amazing:

One thing the games are often criticized for is their use of the modern day segments. They take you out of the action, they’re boring, and they’re mostly throwaway. The film takes those moments and makes them the focus of the movie, expanding on the rich universe Ubisoft has set up but mostly failed to execute in a meaningful way in their games.

The plot of Assassin’s Creed follows Callum Lynch played by the fantastic Michael Fassbender. He’s sentenced to death after falling into a life of crime after a traumatic experience in his childhood which caused him to run away from home. After being “executed”, Lynch wakes up in a mysterious facility where he’s forced to participate in extreme experiments in the Animus to help the templar-led company, Abstergo, find the sought after Apple of Eden.

The Apple holds many mystical abilities, whoever possesses it will be granted so much power they could potentially do whatever they want. There’s a bit of a power struggle within Abstergo, some want the Apple to cure the world of all violence while some want it for some more evil means of controlling the world. It creates this interesting dynamic of wanting Abstergo to succeed because they could do good in the world if they used it properly, but if used wrongfully it could have horrible consequences.

Lynch comes from a family of assassins but he never really fell into the creed so he has no loyalty to them and he hates them due to what they did to his family. Within Abstergo’s facility, he meets other test subjects who have dedicated their life to the creed. They’re concerned he’ll lead to the downfall of society as we know it if he continues to work willingly with Abstergo, leaving Lynch torn. He’s promised a new, clean life if he helps Abstergo and is also told the world will be rid of violence and he’s also working with Abstergo in spite of the assassins. On the other hand, he doesn’t want to be the reason society collapses on itself. As someone who knows how evil Abstergo is, I still couldn’t help but understand Lynch’s reasons for being torn on this path.

The best part of the games is probably the weakest part of the movie:

My complaints with the film begin when Callum Lynch is put into the Animus, a machine that pulls memories of your ancestors from your DNA and allows you to see them as they would’ve happened centuries ago. In the three Animus segments, I always felt really lost. I know why Lynch was being put into the Animus but I had no idea what was happening in the past from a story perspective.

The three Animus segments seem very disconnected from each other and loosely follow one story thread about the assassins rescuing some little boy for some reason. I had no idea why this boy was relevant to the plot or how exactly each Animus segment tied together, they really only served the movie as cool action scenes and a way for them to find the Apple. It kind of felt like the writers of the film didn’t know how to make two great stories side by side, so they made one really good one and one that was just…  a thing that happens. It was very disjointed and left me more confused than I should’ve been.

There was also a bizarre, forced love story in the Animus segments that could’ve been scrapped completely and the movie wouldn’t have been affected in any way. It felt awkward and strange because you don’t get to spend a lot of time with these characters in the past, so there’s no real development between them.

My only major gripe with the film is most of the third act. Without going too deep into spoilers, it felt like they didn’t know how to end the movie in a logical way. Character motivations change drastically, some events didn’t need to happen if one character didn’t do one stupid thing, and it all feels a bit rushed. It didn’t ruin the movie but it felt very insipid and unnecessary when the credits roll.

The PG-13 rating holds the movie back in a number of ways:

The movie also suffers from its PG-13 rating. The Assassin’s Creed games are VERY bloody, you see throats get cut open, people get impaled, and much more. All of that happens in this movie, but there’s no blood at all and it looks weird. You also have to be careful on how violent you get with a PG-13 rating, so you can’t show a blade piercing someone and you have to cut away from a lot of the deaths because it would be too violent. I understand they want this movie to be available to as many people as possible but when there are so many cuts and edits to avoid that R rating that you begin to lose track of what the hell is happening, it impacts the quality of the film. The movie is about assassins, as in people who murder people in vicious ways. This isn’t really made for children, there shouldn’t be compromises made here.

When they do let the action play out without cutting away every 5 seconds (I’m really not exaggerating in the number of cuts there are in this movie), you can see some really fantastic fighting and action. One moment that specifically sticks out in my mind is when Aguilar (the assassin who is an ancestor of Callum Lynch) pulls out a bow and arrow and is trying to avoid shooting his fellow assassin as she battles someone else in a narrow hallway while another templar is quickly approaching her. He angles the arrow so it bounces off the wall and plunges straight into the oncoming templar. There’s also very little use of apparent CGI, most of it looks to be practical stunts and it looks really spectacular when the movie isn’t busy trying to give you an epileptic seizure from all the quick edits.

A visually stunning film:

Despite poor editing, the movie looks absolutely gorgeous from a visual standpoint. Each setting has its own look and feel, the framing and composition of shots are excellent, and the colors in the movie really pop. Whether it’s the dark, gloomy but almost dream-like blue of Abstergo or the beautiful, dirty orange and brown/black of Spain in the Animus segment, the movie has something for everyone to gawk at.

Stays authentic to the source material in some of the best ways possible:

The last thing I’ll touch on is how incredibly faithful this movie is to the games. They nail almost every aspect of the game while taking creative liberties here and there. This movie nails down even the smallest things such as the eagle screeching as an assassin performs a leap of faith, the creed removing the finger of a new assassin so they can use their new hidden blade, and much more. It’s very well executed and it feels like it exists in this massive universe that Ubisoft has established. I may be incorrect, but it also looks like some of the assassins from previous games can be spotted in the background of the film. The only thing that bothered me is there’s no mention of the major events in previous Assassin’s Creed games, like the world almost ending in 3 or Desmond Miles playing such a major role in the modern day elements of the games. It didn’t take away from my overall enjoyment of the film, but it felt like a missed opportunity.

Verdict:

Despite getting railed from critics, I really enjoyed Assassin’s Creed! It further develops the universe of Ubisoft’s massive franchise and feels faithful to the source material. All of the actors do an excellent job portraying their characters (especially Fassbender), the film takes one of the most boring parts of the games and makes it one of the best parts of the movie, and there are moments where I was genuinely on the edge of my seat. Assassin’s Creed does have some issues, mostly with the Animus sections and the poor editing but the good outweighs the bad. I truly hope 20th Century Fox and Ubisoft greenlight an R-rated sequel that corrects some of the mistakes of this film and continues this story as there’s tons of potential with this cast and story.

If you've seen it, what did you think of Assassin's Creed? Let us know down in the comments below!