Assassin's Creed

At some point I've got to stop being surprised about a video game movie being awful right? You'd think so but every time a big budget video game movie comes about, I develop temporary amnesia. I get excited about the casting, tag the release date, and look at the trailers with nothing but hope. And time after time they let me down. And this one was no exception. Today I dive into the mess that is Assassin's Creed.

The movie follows Callum, a troublemaker on death row whom is rescue by a mysterious corporation Abstergo Foundation. Their goal is insane but clear. Using new technology they want Callum to relive the memories of an ancestor to help them locate a power artifact. Though skeptical at first, Callum quickly begins on a path that will give him the skills of an assassin, answers about his past, and possibly a purpose.

Much like the films before it, Assassin's Creed fails for a lot of the same reasons other video game movies fail. So instead of a standard blow by blow, I'll highlight the most notable flaws and how things could've been different.

The Plot Highlights the Worst Parts of the Game

In the video games, the business of reliving the memories of a past relative is a convenient device that gives the game some background and reasoning for when things go wrong. But, as any fan of the game will tell you, it's all the most boring part of the games. The fun stuff in this series has always been going to a different period in time and taking out targets with acrobatic murder parkour. 

As a movie this goes double because not only does it kill the tension during the action scenes in the past, it also tries to make the audience care about the current timeline (which the movie deems more important).

You'd be better off just setting this in the past and presenting the entire thing like a story being told to Callum via a diary or a book, and him working out his own mystery in the meantime. This would also give Callum something resembling a character since all of his most interesting scenes involve the past and his modern day incarnation only has one emotion: anger.

Even if you have to use the time sync or relived memories idea, you don't have to use the tired "evil corporation" trope. You can simply plant one bad person and make it the heroes job to find out who it is using the clues from his memories. 

Competent Action...Through A Grimy Filter

The typical problems for action in video games movies tends to be twofold: no budget or poor staging. While you can make competent action scenes on the cheap, video games tend to have supernatural or big budget elements built in so delivering anything less than bombastic feels inauthentic or cheap. Likewise, a lot of these movies are less interested with action choreography than they are with costuming or tone. Max Payne, for instance, a video game series built around gigantic gun battles has one moderately interesting shootout and the rest are an odd mixture of slow mo and hand to hand combat for some reason.

Assassin's Creed doesn't have either of those problems. They got a full budget and the action scenes are exceptionally well-choreographed. Here's the wrinkle: They look awful.

Like a lot of modern blockbusters this thing has been pushed through a bunch of horrible looking filters that muted all of the colors so much that a movie that primarily takes place during the day looks like it's in perpetual sunset. It's awful. It also doesn't help that we know nothing about the stakes or the characters, and have no emotional investment in ninety percent of the action scenes. It doesn't matter how good the hand to hand combat or wall jumping insanity are. If you don't care if the hero lives or dies, your action scenes will still be boring.

No Sense of Fun

The reason people play video games where they can be gravity defying assassin's isn't because they have a vested interest in the outcome. It's because escapist fantasy is super fun. 

I don't know why this is a lingering problem in the genre, but so many of these movies are obnoxiously unaware of how silly and melodramatic their stories are. I mean say the plot of this movie out loud and try not to laugh a little bit. It should be over the top, silly, and full of jokes like a solid adventure movie. But no, everything is life or death, super serious, and melodramatic. *Sigh* Another video game movie, another missed opportunity.

Though competently made, a terrible plot and joyless attitude kill any fun to be had. Skip this one.