Video game movies are widely known for not being very good. They always show promise and then end up dropping the ball either at the very start or towards the end of the film you just can’t be bothered with it anymore. Assassin’s Creed is the latest film to try and assassinate that trend and it only just manages to hit it’s target. The film looks amazing and is as detailed and interesting visually as the games but it is the story and unfortunately the overall existence of this particular approach of the film itself that brings it down. Three quarters of the film is set in the modern day and one quarter is set in 15th century Spain. Now without ruining anything this film would be much better as two films. The first film being set in 15th Century Spain with a bit of modern day story at the start and then the second film having Fassbender as a modern day Assassin running through and on top of high modern day cities with Jason Bourne like action. This would allow the film to fully embrace the 15th century setting and not keep jumping back and forth between then and now, which can be very tiresome. It would also allow the film to not have to reveal the main villain in the first 15 minutes which essentially kind of ruins most of the story and leaves you just watching cool action scenes. The action, however, is extremely enjoyable and very well choreographed and I would watch it again for those scenes alone but the film had so much promise to be more than what you do in the video games anyway. The film needed to take more of a risk, it needed to ironically take a leap of faith and shoot for two films instead of wasting it’s story on just the one. It’s disappointing that such a good looking film with a great score (except one random rock song at the start which stood out like one of the bad glitches in the games) turned out to be average but it could’ve been so much worse. I do feel like it is being unfairly picked on by everyone and Fassbender is fantastic as always in the film and he clearly cares a lot about the series. My advice would be to go in with an open mind and just simply enjoy the film and you could end up liking it more than you realise. If not then I apologise, maybe it’s just me who didn’t hate it.
Expectation Level: High, video game film to destroy the trend of bad films.
Expectations almost achieved, just missed.
Score: 3/5 – With such promise from those involved its disappointing that their promises didn’t pan out. I hope that there is a sequel because I would definitely watch it. For all of it’s faults it can still be applauded for being something different and having great and realistic fight sequences even despite the lack of blood.