The most representative moment of “Assassin’s Creed” comes not in any of the big-scale action set pieces or even in any of the gobs of expository dialogue some of the actors are asked to spout, but in a seemingly tossed-off moment in which Callum Lynch (Michael Fassbender) turns his head back down to his meal in a cafeteria and says to himself, “What the fuck is going on?” The character’s confusion is likely to be echoed by most of the audience, considering how little sense Justin Kurzel’s big-screen adaptation of the popular video-game franchise makes. But the amusement Fassbender exudes in his delivery of that line is also telling. It’s one of the few moments where he slyly tips his hand and allows us to see that, to some degree, he knows how silly this movie — revolving around a contest between two centuries-old secret societies, the Assassins and the Templars, to capture an “Apple of Eden” that potentially contains the secret to keeping people under control — is. And yet he and the rest of the cast — which includes top-tier talent like Marion Cotillard, Jeremy Irons, Brendan Gleeson, and Charlotte Rampling — commit so intensely to their roles that the material fully emerges in its at times batshit-insane splendor.
Alas, two things get in the way of “Assassin’s Creed” being more dumbly enjoyable that it could have been. First is the film’s generally brown-ish color scheme. Kurzel and cinematographer Adam Arkapaw bathed their previous film, “Macbeth,” in similarly desaturated colors, and while that choice could be defended there as of a piece with the filmmakers’ gritty take on Shakespeare’s play, in “Assassin’s Creed” the approach does little more than deny viewers any sense of visual pleasure, making the action scenes — barely coherent to begin with under Christopher Tellefsen’s editing, and even less interesting to behold as choreography — as much of an eyesore as they are a bore to watch.
Second is the fundamental failing of most screen adaptation of video games: the inherent loss of the interactive aspect that gives the video-game medium its particular allure. Watching Callum Lynch fight off hordes of Spaniards during the Spanish Inquisition while he’s locked into the “Animus” — a device that allows him to immerse himself in the memories of his 15th-century ancestor, an Assassin named Aguilar de Nerha — one may well find themselves feeling the same way one might feel when they see someone else playing a first-person-shooter game: wishing that they were the ones playing it instead. It’d probably be more fun being in the driver’s seat, so to speak, of these particular action scenes than it is to watch them from the distance imposed by cinema’s fourth wall.
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Even with less-than-stimulating action scenes and dim-looking cinematography, though, there are a few crumbs of campy pleasure to be unearthed, most of them courtesy of the blessedly game actors. As Sofia, the scientist who brings Callum into Abstergo Industries to tap into his inner Assassin, Cotillard delivers the majority of her lines in a strangely compelling near-monotone manner befitting a scientist’s emotionally detached, purely analytical mindset. Irons, as her father, matches her in remarkably sustained deadpan; while Rampling brings her usual regal poise as Ellen Kaye, a leading figure of the Templars. Above all, though, there’s Fassbender, bringing as much conviction as he can muster, making a line as ridiculous-sounding as “Get me to the Animus” play as if he truly felt the weight of the world bearing on his shoulders.
It’s a good thing these actors play this material so persuasively straight, because if you give even an inkling of thought to the film’s near-indecipherable plot, the philosophical implications may well be unsettling. The centuries-long conflict between the Templars — who desire control of the populace through an eradication of free will — and the Assassins — protectors of free will — play out in Kurzel’s film as a quest to secure the aforementioned Apple of Eden — yes, the one that Adam and Eve ate in the Garden of Eden, thus creating original sin — containing a genetic code for free will. But with free will comes a capacity for violence of the type that Callum has ingrained in him, and which Sofia is trying to curb through her experiments. Since the Assassins are painted as the heroes in this film, is “Assassin’s Creed” implying that maintaining free will means accepting man’s inherent violence? So what of Sofia’s mission to bring an end to violence in general? One suspects that none of the filmmakers gave such ramifications any thought. Instead, it’s all window-dressing for an ending that reveals this alternately goofy and self-serious big-budget Hollywood product to be little more than a two-hour prelude to a potential future franchise. [C-]