Note: This article contains spoilers.
Over my holiday break, I took the chance of viewing the Assassin’s Creed movie. As an avid video game player, and one who loved the story line of the Assassin’s Creed video games, I absolutely loved the movie. Yet, after returning home and curious about what others were saying about it, I was surprised to see it receive such low ratings and not as much enjoyment being felt because of it.
As I was researching the different perspectives on why Assassin’s Creed was not doing so well, the main arguments that arose were:
“But the cramming of information into an average-length feature film only undermines it in this adaptation” (Glenn Kenny, Review: ‘Assassin’s Creed’ Whisks Michael Fassbender into 1492 Spain)
“Basically, we’re watching “The Matrix” and “The Da Vinci Code” get Cuisinarted into weaponized action sequences that look like they came off of old heavy-metal album covers” (Owen Gleibermen, Film Review: ‘Assassin’s Creed’)
As I was reading these, I could see where if you didn’t know the games, you weren’t going to understand every point in the movie, yet I couldn’t help but see the action-packed sequences and the amount of information given to the audience as being too much or misguided.
Yes, there isn’t a lot of mystery here, but how can a movie allow for an entire franchise of games to pack every detail into one movie? The answer is that they can’t, but to me, I at least noticed the attempt at giving what you could.
I found that the beginning explained everything quite enough without having to refer back to my previous knowledge about the franchise. You don’t have to play the video games to understand what is going on. The movie conveys enough information about the continuous rivalry between the Assassins and the Templars, and the Templar’s plot to enslave the world’s free will through a mystical object called the Apple of Eden.
From what I can see, the story line progresses quite smoothly, building their action sequences into their story, all while adding to the already established franchise. As our new hero, Cal, is called upon to take reins as the Assassin he was born to be, the story then opens up into a man who begins to understand all that he did not know before, leading him to make his own judgment about being an Assassin. This then leads us to the open ending, which I am personally hoping they will continue with the story. Everything in this movie has given the viewer the background information, and I hope that with a second movie, we can begin to see where the concepts of Assassin’s Creed are really meant to show us.
To refer back to the criticism, I will have to disagree with those who couldn’t understand it to give it another go. The story is there for someone who wants it to, and I don’t believe that one has to have played the Assassin’s Creed video games in order for it all to make sense. Yet, I am also hoping for some to even consider playing the games after seeing the movie as a way to become more involved. The movie gives just enough to get you as the viewer into the plot, and any other concepts or ideas could eventually be found by referring to the videos games, hopefully provoked by curiosity of the Assassin’s world.
