Review of Assassin's Creed (2016) by Pur__0_0__ — 21 Mar 2021

The way it was being announced sounded really promising. Its trailer was a masterpiece, the fact that it used its original Assassin and original setting instead of milking the popularity of Altair/Ezio, being the highest budget for any video game movie etc. I thought finally this film shall be what changes the video game movie genre once and for all. But it didn't. Here's a list of all the problems I think this movie had.

The movie couldn't even decide who it is for. First they explain obvious things to the audience, like what the Animus is and what the Assassins and Templars do, but then they don't tell us many things we want to know, like why the Apple of Eden is important, what the bleeding effect is or the fact that Cal got desynchronised after performing a Leap of Faith (it looked more like he got injured from the jump). So they bored the fans of the game and confused the ones who haven't played it.

The only thing the ancestor was shown doing was assassinating a man while riding a horse cart, and saving himself from being hanged. That's it. They could have shown so many things - How Aguilar was born, how his upbringing was, how he became an Assassin, how he met that woman who died and why he got so emotional when she died, how he ended up getting caught because of which he was being hanged, what was the aftermath after he escaped and gave Columbus the Apple of Eden, and how he knew the Templar in the horse cart.

Sure they wanted to make everything original, but it would have been great if they decided to add some veteran characters in the cameos. It would have been more fun to see Shaun and Rebecca helping Cal to get out than that boring prison break scene, or if he got hold of the Apple of Eden and killed everyone around him like how Desmond did it in III (it would have been a great reference).

The Animus they introduced also made it so much more confusing. They could have just made the Animus lift him in the air and keep him still instead of moving around. It made the audience wonder what will happen if he runs straight or performs a leap of faith. And the movie answers both the questions by... ... not answering them!

Of course this film is not a complete disaster like how all video game movies before it were. There are a few things I liked about this film. They used their own Assassin. Had they wanted they could have made a crappy Altair origin story or a boring version of Ezio story and milked their popularity. But they took the risk of bringing up a new Assassin, one whom we had never heard of before.

The entire trait of the Assassin was limited to this one film. Nothing to be learnt before watching the film, nothing to know afterwards. This movie is completely standalone, unlike high budget cash grabbing movies nowadays which are made only to create a franchise.

The film took place in Spain. Until now the Assassin's Creed franchise had covered almost all famous European countries - Britain, France, Italy, Portugal, Russia. By now Greece and Scandinavian countries have also joined. But the elephant in the room, Spain, had still not been addressed, even though it was a great place to show.

The visual appeal. Right from where they show a burning Madrid with an eagle flying over it to where Aguilar performs a leap of faith, everything was exciting. I gotta admit, they showed the ancestor very nicely. They should have focused on him more than the modern day.

They knew what translates well into the screen and what doesn't. That's the reason why they didn't dive deep into the game mechanics. They just gave an overview to the audience showing what the series is all about, even if they didn't explain things well and stated the obvious. This way it is possible to pave way for a film franchise if they want.