Assassin’s Creed is an iconic video game franchise, spanning 14 years and 12 main games, each of which has sold well and enjoyed positive reception. The long-running series has made it to film only one time, where it failed by every conceivable metric, but is the hate for yet another disappointing video game movie justified?
Assassin’s Creed released in December of 2016, pushed back 3 times from dates in 2015 as the film sat shelved for months. The project was a collaboration between Sony and Ubisoft, co-produced and starring Michael Fassbender, the studio’s first choice and apparent main selling point for the film.
Video game movies are almost always dreadful, anyone with a passing familiarity with games or movies knows that. Even on the grading curve that video game movies enjoy, Assassin’s Creed flopped hard and reviewed badly. Racking up an 18% on Rotten Tomatoes and losing the studio an estimated 75 to 100 million dollars, Assassin’s Creed uniquely underperformed considering the name recognition. Hate for the film seems to be outweighed only by apathy towards it, as few people bothered to see it in theaters and current streaming options are limited.
Assassin’s Creed is the story of Cal Lynch, a death row inmate whisked away from his impending execution by Abstergo Industries. Abstergo, a company run by modern-day Templar Knights, identifies Cal as a descendent of an assassin. The assassins and Templars have been engaged in battle for centuries over the legendary Apple of Eden, the supposed source of man’s free will. Cal is placed into the Animus, a device designed to allow its users to relive genetic memories of ancestors. The film, like the early games, is divided into modern scenes of Cal in a high-tech prison and ancient scenes of Aguilar de Nerha, Cal’s Spanish assassin ancestor.
The film, taken on its own merits, is pretty bad. Not anywhere near worst film ever territory, but uninspired, dull, and soulless. The futuristic modern-day scenes are largely boring exposition or incomprehensible attempts at worldbuilding. The film does not adapt direct storylines from the games, but its attempts to create new stories within the same mold are so generic that it still finds no originality. Much of what the film does do well has been done better elsewhere, and the overarching narrative is far too weak to sustain interest in its better aspects.
Assassin’s Creed was directed by Justin Kurzel, a bizarre choice for the job. Kurzel is an Australian director who made waves with his 2011 debut Snowtown, a chilling true-crime biopic about a trio who killed 12 people. Kurzel’s other big project before being hired for Assassin’s Creed was a retelling of Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Kurzel’s 2015 take on the classic tale actually starred Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard, both of whom would go on to star in his video game adaptation. Assassin’s Creed was the director’s first and thus far only action film, he has not done anything at all similar before or since.
But, despite all of that and at the risk of damning with faint praise, there are good things about Assassin’s Creed. Some impressive steps were taken to preserve the feel of the game. Most incredibly, one of the highest freefalls by a stuntman in decades was performed to recreate the games’ iconic Leap of Faith. Some of the cinematography, both in large-scale action scenes or simple beauty shots of Spain really takes the breath away. The casting is mostly good, though a few actors definitely phone it in, Fassbender fits both roles well and Michael K. Williams is fun as the descendent of Baptiste from Assassin’s Creed III: Liberation.
So the film is not good, but the level of punishment it suffered still feels a bit beyond the pale. Video game movies since 2016 have actually managed a couple of genuinely great entries. Films like Detective Pikachu, Sonic the Hedgehog, and its upcoming sequel manage to carry the spirit of the source material while creating fantastic films in their own rights. In 2016, however, the best fans could hope for was something like 1995’s Mortal Kombat or 2006’s Silent Hill, decent films that at least try to bring the energy of the games. With this in mind, Assassin’s Creed actually looks worse in 2021.
Assassin’s Creed is miles from the bottom of the barrel when it comes to video game adaptations, so why so much hate? For one thing, it came after over two decades of experience with terrible video game movies. There was a time when fans might get excited hearing about a film adaptation, but that time was long passed when Assassin’s Creed hit the screens. In addition, the franchise was not at its height. The most recent game released was Syndicate in 2015, one of the worst-selling games in the franchise. Finally, fatally, the film is bad in the worst possible way. A terrible video game adaptation could be fun, where Assassin’s Creed fails, it manages to fail completely without spectacle.
Assassin’s Creed earns the majority of the derision that it receives, but it frankly lands somewhere in the middle of the video game movie scale. The film has its moments, but it’s dull, poorly timed, and rightfully forgotten.
