Assassin's Creed

Assassin's Creed

Video game movies have gotten a bad rep in the film world over the last few decades. There really still hasn't been a great video game movie to this day, not to say some aren't enjoyable. Movies like Mortal Kombat, Resident Evil, Tomb Raider, Warcraft are all enjoyable in their own right, but still fall short of being really good. Usually a lot of problems lie in the story itself, as it's hard to translate a story that a player experiences through their own actions as they control a character and make choices in some cases. The games chosen to make movies out of usually already have an established fan base, which is good and bad when making a movie. On one hand you have an audience that's already going to see the movie, but on the other hand the fan base will also be harder to please because they already know so much about the game and have experienced hours of it. Nowadays games themselves are incredibly cinematic and story driven, with memorable characters and voice actors. 

Assassin's Creed is another game franchise with a massive fan base that's been growing for over 6 games. Players have spent (possibly) hundreds of hours playing through them all, and are very connected to the story (which can be pretty complicated after the first few games to follow). This movie already had a lot to live up to using the Assassin's Creed name. But many were hopeful when the cast was announced with veterans like; Michael Fassbender, Jeremy Irons and Marion Cottilard. So did Assassin's Creed live up to the name? Is it the first really great video game based movie?

The answer is...no? Assassin's Creed is by no means a great movie, but it was one of the more enjoyable video game movies I've seen in a long time. I think the movie did a  pretty good job at introducing the world and the concepts of the game. There was a lot of good moments, but every good moment had a bad moment to go along with it, cancelling out the good. 

The Good: The action scenes are fun to watch, even though they aren't ground breaking or unique, they are still entertaining enough. The movie also does a good job at putting little details from the game into the movie, that I think fans of the games will pick up on and enjoy. The movie also does a good job at introducing the world without just copy and pasting the games moments. Instead of being lazy and just using all the moments from the video games, it creates it's own without going too far away from the game. It's also cool that the movie goes to a new location in 15th century Spain, and I also like the fact that all the scenes in Spain are spoken in the Spanish language, complete with the original accents. 

The Bad: The acting is nothing special in this movie, even from veteran actors who are known for great films. A lot of the acting is very emotionless, with just a few scenes from Fassbender being somewhat emotional. The movie can also be pretty boring at times, with lots of conversations that kinda feel pointless or confusing, and again not much emotion put into it. The movie doesn't spend a lot of time in old Spain, which is bad since those are the best parts of the movie. Most of the characters aren't really fleshed out, the worst one being Aguilar (Fassbender's Spanish ancestor), who doesn't really seem to have much of a character except the fact he's an assassin. The villain's motivations don't really make much sense either since they aren't explained in enough detail to understand how it all works. There's a lot of things introduced that seem to go nowhere, as i'm assuming there are more movies planned, though they may never come if this movie fails financially.

In the end, Assassin's Creed is a below average movie, but an above average video game movie. There's enough good and interesting moments to keep you watching, but there really aren't any great memorable moments. Too many boring and pointless scenes keep this from being a good movie and it also doesn't help that there really aren't any characters to connect to. There's still enough here to make it watchable, especially if you're a fan of the game series. BUT I would say wait for it to come out on DVD or a streaming service and give a rent.

Grade: C-

If you're looking for good video game movie though...

Just watch Wreck-It Ralph. Doesn't seem any good movies based on real video games are gonna exist anytime soon.