Assassin’s Creed – A Review

I took my boys and my niece and nephew to see this movie over the break. I’ve never played the game, although I’ve watched my children play it. I had no expectations going into the film, but I was happy to see that Michael Fassbender was in it. He’s also in Prometheus and the new Alien movie Covenant, but we won’t hold that against him.

Side note: I’m actually pretty excited to see the new Alien movie; it looks like the first film. However, I’m also staying reserved in case it turns out like any of the AvP movies or Prometheus.

Back to Assassin’s Creed. I don’t ask for much when it comes to movies. I’m usually pretty happy if there are fight scenes, eye candy, and explosions. A plot is nice, but, as I said, I’m not overly picky. Thankfully, this film had it all.

It was a bit slow getting started, and I found myself wanting to be in the past more than in the present; there was so much more action. I also wanted to know a lot more about the other assassins and get their backstory, but that didn’t happen—and the vast majority of them died, so they won’t be getting expanded story lines.

I was also slightly confused as to how all of the assassins were captured and placed in the experimental program. A few, yes, but all? That doesn’t seem possible. And if it did happen, why in the hell didn’t they revolt against their captors? I mean, they’re trained killers. As it shows in the film, a few of them can take out a lot of enemies. What could a whole group of them do?

I’m fully aware that if that did happen Cal wouldn’t have his story, but I felt like that needed to be explained better.

The hypocrisy throughout the film was fantastic. The basic plot is that the Knights Templar are trying to find the Apple of Eden to eradicate Free Will, which, in their jaded minds, will eradicate violence. It will also give them the opportunity to rule the world. The Assassins have been tasked with making sure the Apple stays out of the hands of the Knights, using any means necessary. They follow the “Creed,” which dictates that nothing is more important than protecting the Apple, not even their lives.

As you can imagine, the Knights don’t exactly follow their rule of “no violence” and do whatever they have to do to obtain the Apple. They are much more focused on gaining power and controlling people than they are in helping them. As villains, they weren’t terrible, and the movie brought in a lot of interesting information with the Crusade and using different mediums to control the people from religion to consumerism. If I was inclined, I could look more deeply into the film and tease out the meaning behind it, but I won’t for this post. I need more time to think about it.

Again, I don’t know much about the video game except the bits and pieces I see when the kids play, but I don’t think you have to know anything about the game to watch the movie. It’s pretty self-explanatory. All in all, it was an enjoyable film that I didn’t regret taking my kids to. They really enjoyed it, so it was a perfect afternoon.

Have any of you seen it? What did you think?