Assassin’s Creed

Assassin’s Creed

The movie “Assassin’s Creed” is based on a game franchise in which the player jumps around in period dress (the setting varies depending on the game), scaling buildings and killing people. But where the video game is ridiculous and fun, “Assassin’s Creed” is just ridiculous and turgid.

This, I think, is the essential problem with most video game movies (with the possible exceptions of “Mortal Kombat,” “Super Mario Brothers: The Movie” and “Street Fighter”) there’s no way to translate the hands-on action of a video game to passive viewing on a movie screen, so many video game adaptations either don’t have much plot at all or get bogged down in lazy set-up.

So why does “Assassin’s Creed” spend so much thoughtful info dump talk talk talking about the modern day Knights Templar and their quest to end global violence through an intricate virtual reality job program beyond that idea itself? Who choreographed these dull, repetitive fight scenes? And why are supporting cast members like Jeremy Irons and Charlotte Rampling slinking around sulkily off to one side while poor Michael K. Williams waits eagerly for a good line or two? (He never gets one.) If anyone had an inspired thought while making this movie, it doesn’t show.

There’s a prisoner named Cal Lynch (Michael Fassbender), who lives in the not too distant future. He’s sentenced to die for reasons that are irrelevant because they aren’t relevant to anything else either, and then he gets kidnapped by a shadowy group (The Templars) that wants Cal because of his DNA. Wait let me back up: The Templars have a virtual reality machine called The Animus, which lets people see through their ancestors’ eyes by sending them back in time.

They need this information because they want information about where they can find the Apple of Eden, a device (not a fruit) that can be used to eliminate human free will. Also Cal’s ancestor is in this counter revolutionary group called the Assassin’s Creed, which is a bunch of killers who opposed the Templars’ dogmatic quest to rule the world by hiding the Apple from tree.

The short version is, Cal has information that the Templars need and is apparently not bright enough to realize when a set-up is imminent. Same goes for Sofia (Marion Cotillard), Cal’s handler and daughter of Templar leader Rikkin (Jeremy Irons). Cal has daddy issues, so he helps the Templars for a while. Also, apparently it gives him magical martial arts skills because his ancestor Aguilar had them too (this makes more sense in the video games but only very slightly).

Ok, so a dude time travels and does kung-fu and tries to take away human free will because he’s sad, then he fights the church people that hired him or whatever. I say “a dude” because nothing means anything in “Assassin’s Creed,” except for the vain pursuit of pretending that endless (and fundamentally dumb) exposition should be taken seriously. So many conversations go on forever because seriousness is being substituted for dynamics in storytelling. Characters talk quietly about their convoluted methods of enacting their obvious plans.

And you’re always ahead of them anyway, because nobody’s smart enough to think “Maybe I’m being manipulated by a shadow organization bent on eliminating free will.” Or, “Huh, maybe it would behoove me to help these guys find something called The Apple Of Eden.”

These characters aren’t real; they just spout narrative information and move the plot along inch by inch. Oh yeah, they fight sometimes too. But never in an interesting way! The camera certainly doesn’t skimp on action during those sequences but the monotonous, diagrammatic choreography makes you wish it did.

That said: There is one scene in which the filmmakers tip their hand at why they wanted to make this movie. Cal is shown a room full of Animus test subjects who have prematurely aged and/or have gone blind (this is also not explained well). Suddenly everything clicks into place: Is this a Zardoz homage? Zardoz is a campy 1974 sci-fi film in which Sean Connery plays a rebellious brute who tries to destroy The Tabernacle, which was built as a kind of future warehouse for all human culture ever.

The connection here with Zardoz becomes even harder to ignore when this scene features what can only be described as a menagerie full of Renegades noncompliant misfits who were cast out after simply asking too many questions. For a second, Assassin’s Creed looks like it might get kind of interesting. Unfortunately that second passes, as the filmmakers are more interested in telling us the story than in telling us a story. Gamers may enjoy Assassin’s Creed; everybody else will be subjected to it.

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