★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆

Warcraft (yes, I’m one of those people), the future for cinematic video game adaptions seemed hopeful. Looking at the roll call for Assassin’ Creed, the light shone brighter still: director Justin Kurzel, his brother and composer Jed, cinematographer Adam Arkapaw, and the two powerhouse leads of their Macbeth retelling; Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard…what could possibly go wrong? After the moderate success of Duncan Jones’(yes, I’m one ofpeople), the future for cinematic video game adaptions seemed hopeful. Looking at the roll call for, the light shone brighter still: director Justin Kurzel, his brother and composer Jed, cinematographer Adam Arkapaw, and the two powerhouse leads of theirretelling; Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard…what could possibly go wrong?





Assassin's Creed as a video game was when I failed an early tutorial mission. I was unsuccessful in my attempts to push through a crowd of peasants without smashing any of their pottery, and consequently spent a lot of time watching others play the game instead. I know little else beyond the essential setup, the increasingly tangled plotlines and the bugbears that plagued Unity: upon first release, human faces were missing a lot of their features, leading to quest conversations between two characters composed only of disembodied eyeballs and teeth floating above their clothes. With the benefit of hindsight, those ludicrous interactions proved far more entertaining than any dialogue in Kurzel's film. The moment I gave up onas a video game was when I failed an early tutorial mission. I was unsuccessful in my attempts to push through a crowd of peasants without smashing any of their pottery, and consequently spent a lot of time watching others play the game instead. I know little else beyond the essential setup, the increasingly tangled plotlines and the bugbears that plagued: upon first release, human faces were missing a lot of their features, leading to quest conversations between two characters composed only of disembodied eyeballs and teeth floating above their clothes. With the benefit of hindsight, those ludicrous interactions proved far more entertaining than any dialogue in Kurzel's film.





Fassy stars as Callum Lynch; a convict smuggled out of death row by Jeremy Irons’ sinister Abstergo Industries and informed by Sofia (Cotillard) that he’s the last remaining descendant of an ancient order, the Assassins. During the Spanish inquisition, Cal’s ancestor, Aguilar, hid away the fabled Apple of Eden, a biblical McGuffin with the power to control the free will of man. Using the Animus (a big robot arm with lots of needles, explained in gloriously straight-faced techno-babble by Cotillard), Cal is able to experience the memories of his ancestor, Aguilar (Fassbender, only slathered in dirt and beard), in a search for the Apple’s location.





From pretty much the first shot, I knew I wasn’t going to get along with this film. The camera makes an incredibly awkward, ungainly digital movement across a mountain, drops about 50 feet for no reason, then lumbers upwards to establish a castle location: the cinematic equivalent of an OAP attempting to clamber out of their recliner, realising they left their chocolate digestive behind halfway through, sitting back down, then trying to get up again as if nothing’s happened. The film, too, is in a constant state of wondering whether to stay or go. It’s pulled in half by wanting to faithfully honour the source material (without Fassbender’s early discussions with game studio Ubisoft, it’s doubtful this would have seen the light of day), but also wanting to forge its own story.





What makes this problematic is that the new story is total an(im)us. It spends an unholy amount of time on exposition yet we’re still searching for answers: is Callum only seeing the events or does he enact them? If it’s merely some kind of brain cinema, what’s the point of all the leaping about? What's the significance of Denis Ménochet as a security chief who always looks on the verge of corpsing? And, most importantly; why should I care about Aguilar? Entire action set pieces are wasted on a character I know is going to survive up to a certain point, as well as attempting to muster up emotional support for a sidekick who I had to look up on IMDb because, in all 140 minutes of the film, she’s never named (for the record, it’s Maria).





Sure, the runny-jumpy-stabby fun occasionally recreates the balletic abandon of the classic games, but isn't quite enough to make up for lack of engagement, throwing some passable parkour and Jed Kurzel’s gloriously thudding score into the mix with all the artistic splendour of banging a pair of muddy football boots together in a renaissance art exhibition. I’m usually tripping over myself to applaud a film for technical merit over any other faults, but it’s hard to wax lyrical about an individual aesthetic when it’s presented so poorly.



