A video game turned into a special effects blockbuster, with plenty of running around and fighting to the death and some big names to go with it – that’s what you are in for when you buy a ticket to see Assassin’s Creed. Released in 2007, the game dropped players into the heart of the Crusades, imagining a bloody, centuries-long war between a secret society known as the Assassins and the Christian order, the Knights Templar. It spawned no fewer than eight sequels and a slew of popular spin-offs that have sold more than 100 million copies worldwide. The series has transported players to the Italian Renaissance, the foundation of America, the golden age of piracy in the Caribbean and revolutionary France.
One of the marks of the Assassin’s Creed franchise has been its marriage of history with heightened fantasy. Framing each of the games is the Assassin/Templar conflict of today, in which shadowy biotechnology company Abstergo Industries serves as the front for the Knights Templar. They imprison Assassins and use a device called “The Animus” to tap their genetic memories and uncover the secrets of their ancestors. Adapting Assassin’s Creed for the big screen, the movie introduces a new character to the established canon, namely Cal Lynch, played by Michael Fassbender.
A descendent of several lines of prominent Assassins, Cal is a career criminal who is rescued from his own execution by Abstergo Industries, the modern-day incarnation of the Templar Order. He is forced to participate in the Animus Project and relive the memories of his ancestor Aguilar de Nerha, an Assassin during the Spanish Inquisition in the 15th Century. As Cal continues to experience Aguilar’s memories, he begins to gain an understanding of his traumatic past and his role in the conflict between the warring factions. It is all about protecting free will from the power-hungry Knights Templar and with it redemption for Cal.
With his experience portraying the powerful mutant Magento in films including X-Men: Days of Future Past, Fassbender was well placed to understand the storytelling possibilities afforded by the game’s time-bending, sci-fi inflected premise. With Fassbender on board, attention turned to a director who could partner with him and bring additional depth to the storytelling. Having collaborated with both Fassbender and Marion Cotillard – who plays Abstergo facility scientist Sofia Rikkin, who introduces Cal to the Animus – on 2015’s Macbeth, Justin Kurzel (Snowtown) was a natural fit.
Cal’s journey was at the heart of Kurzel’s interest in the project. “It’s about a man who learns who he is through the experiences and lives of those who have come before him,” Kurzel says. The set pieces – crashing and bashing, slicing and dicing – are striking and well choreographed, but go on for too long.
Linking the present and the past is a regularly used fantasy plot device and it works well enough. However, as straightforward as the contention is, the storyline doesn’t shake out that way. In fact, I had minutes of boredom and disinterest … and I was somewhat confused. Apart from looking mighty buff, what is Fassbender doing accepting a role like this? I can say the same about Cotillard, along with Charlotte Rampling and Brendan Gleeson, all of whom looked strangely out of place. Surely, there is a hell of a lot more worthy material for them, and Jeremy Irons – who plays the CEO of Abstergo Industries, an organisation supposedly dedicated to the “perfection” of humankind – to lend their talents to. Let’s just say, I wasn’t sold on Assassin’s Creed, which features an infernal bird circling in the sky every time something bad is about to go down. Have it tarred and feathered, I say (not really, but in a metaphorical sense)!
Rated M, Assassin’s Creed scores a 5 out of 10.
Director: Justin Kurzel
Cast: Michael Fassbender, Marion Cotillard, Jeremy Irons
Release Date: 1 January 2017
Rating: M
Alex First
David Edwards is the editor of The Blurb and a contributor on film and television
