Jamie
Cal is a killer given a new lease on life by a company claiming to look for a cure for violence. Through the use of technology his consciousness is transported into the mind of his ancestor in order to find the powerful Apple of Eden. Can he prevent the Apple from falling into the wrong hands before it’s too late? Find out in… Assassin’s Creed.
What?! The Assassin’s Brotherhood is a group sworn to protect the world from the Templars. During the Spanish Inquisition this entails preventing them from recovering what is known as the Apple of Eden, a MacGuffin… I mean, sphere that contains the key to destroying free will and thus subjugating the human race (rad, right?). Cal is descended from these assassins and is rescued from execution by a group called Abstergo in order to find the Apple (extra cool beans). They hook him up to the Animus machine that taps into his assassin genes and relive scenes from his ancestors past (real cool stuff, believe you me). While he struggles with whether to help his captors for the promise of freedom, knowing that they might be evil, he eventually succumbs when it’s revealed that his father, who he witnessed kill his mother, is also held by Abstergo and is an assassin. He’s like “I learned it from you, dad!” and out of spite helps Abstergo discover that the Apple was hidden by none other than Christopher Columbus (badass). They then get the apple and Cal is like “oops, my bad” and quickly turns around and kills the main bad guy and recovers the apple like no big deal (cause he’s a rad, cool, badass assassin destined for several sequels). We then have 15 minutes of credits… not joking, they are actually 15 minutes long. THE END.
Why?! Cal witnessed the murder of his mother by his father as a child and grew up to be a killer himself. So his motivation for much of the movie is to be free so that he might escape what he perceives as cursed genes. This freedom will be granted only if he can deliver the Apple of Eden to Abstergo Industries, so that is what he does. Eventually when he realizes that the Apple of Eden is a MacGuffin that will allow for the Templars to control the world he changes his tune and works against them. That’s the beauty of a MacGuffin. EVERYONE must have it. NO ONE can resist.
What?! This is a truly primo MacGuffin with the Apple of Eden. I mean, it is a total mystery as to what it is, but we do know that the most powerful organization in the world would do anything to get their hands on. To me it sounded like it contained the key to discovering the genetic source to violence in humans (which also is genetically what gives us free will). However, in the video game it sounds more like a piece of the Garden of Eden, which… like… zombifies humans because of the power it holds… or something. It’s hard to explain.
Who?! We get an In Memory Of to Eli Richbourg. He was the VP of Film Development for UbiSoft and was involved in the Assassin’s Creed development. Interestingly he died in 2013 of a brain aneurysm, which gives you a sense of how long the film was in development at UbiSoft.
Where?! It is a very nice Spain movie with settings in both Madrid and Granada. Kinda jumps through hoops to make sure you understand that’s where they are in both the present and past when they very easily could have just obscured it in the beginning. Nope. Very clear and vital to much of the plot. A.
When?! We get an exact date announced for Cal’s date of execution: October 21st, 2016. While this date is not particularly important for the main storyline, the year in the past is 1492. Bet you can’t tell who plays a prominent role in the finale… spoiler alert he directed Home Alone. I say this combines to form a solid A-.
When I started this film I was getting real Transformers vibes. Not the later ones, but the first one and I had a moment where I thought, “wait, could I actually like this?” And then that all fell apart and the movie was straight garbage. It spends way too much time in the present and not enough time in the past and even when they would show you the past you knew it was useless because they more or less told you that Cal couldn’t change anything of the events. So it was like watching someone else watch a movie… cool. This all led to a ridiculously anticlimactic finale that might as well have just had Cal stand in front of the screen and say “I know this is lame, but just you wait for the sequel.” It was terrible… like really, really bad. Although it was pretty at times. Patrick?
Patrick
‘Ello everyone! Assassin’s Creed? More like Assassin’s Crud amirite? Ubisoft thought they could make a movie (how hard could it be?) … turns out they were wrong. Let’s get into it!
The Good – The acting. Fassbender, Cotillard, and Irons all did a great job all things considered. There is something to the underlying story, although it is definitely a video game story through and through, but it is interesting in its own way. I could be beautiful at times, in the same way Warcraft was beautiful at times, although not as much as they seemed to think.
P’s View on the Preview – This film felt like it was going to be much better than the critics gave it credit for. I was convinced that I would watch it and think to myself “I guess at the time people just weren’t ready to give a silly movie a chance like they do comic book movies”. Compared to more recent mediocre responses to such films (Tomb Raider, and Rampage) this was completely destroyed in terms of reviews, and it seemed so unlikely that it was actually that bad.
The Bad – But it was. From the word go the direction was really just not where it needed to be. The story is silly, the acting is very serious, and the direction had to be able to tie those two pieces together … but instead we received bad looking crane shots with CGI dust inserted to obscure the vistas (I need me some goddamn vistas). The scenes in the past were mostly worthless as well. Oh and let’s go ahead an glorify Christopher Columbus, expert genocider and colossal garbage human to end the film … great idea.
Get Yo Rant On – I feel like I’m slowly honing on in my structure much like how Jamie ended up with the 6Ws. Here I think the sklogcabulary quiz, sklogification, sklognalysis will kind of live under the guise of me getting my rant on. We all got to vent. We know that because Bud Light told us so via the 8th wonder of the modern world: the vented beer can. Ahem … You know what I can live with? A terribly contrived and rushed plotline that seems to occur in say … three days. But there is one thing I don’t abide … fake anti-heros (coining it now as the Semi-Hero, Sklogcabulary Quiz mid-rant). Have some balls and make a real anti-hero. Cal is a murderer, great start. But wait! He killed a pimp. Aw guys, it was just a pimp. Wait a tick … why does that matter? Are we supposed to think you are some vigilante hero because you killed a pimp? Give me a break. He has the blood of assassins, he doesn’t need to have some heart of gold so we can root for him. It’s called an anti-hero, not an anti-but-depending-on-how-you-feel-about-vigilante-justice-maybe-a-regular-hero, rant over!
The BMT – Lump it in with Warcraft as a failed video game adaptation of 2016 prior to what has become a kind of rise for the genre in 2018. Sure, Rampage is barely clinging to the somewhat embarrassing distinction of being the first video game film to ever get a 50% or above on Rotten Tomatoes (currently 98-98, exactly 50%), but that is much better than those the came before. Really depends on the director I think … and maybe whether Assassin’s Creed can hold onto that Map Street’s Map Alright! Spain spot.
Welcome to Earf: Assassin’s Creed stars Jeremy Irons who was in Dungeons & Dragons with Marlon Wayans who was in White Chicks with Terry Crews, who was in Blended with Adam Sandler, who was in Jack and Jill with Al Pacino, who was in 88 Minutes with Leelee Sobieski, who was in Here on Earf. Welcome to Earf!
StreetCreditReport.com – Here the film is hidden by two factors. First, it came out on Christmas day of 2016 which means it is somewhat unlikely to make worst of 2016 or 2017 lists, and thus kind of misses out. Second, it tends to be passed over by Warcraft which came out the same year. Critics seemed to not want to throw two video game adaptations in the mix. I don’t think it’ll ever get play though, eventually I think Assassin’s Creed will end up with the (somewhat undeserved) distinction of ushering in a close-and-faithful “realistic” video game film, and could be a pre-Tomb Raider footnote … just feels like it.
I have never played any of these games, but maybe now I will. After a crazy April I’m going to start taking stock of the upcoming movies so I can start doing more of the homework. It feels like I’m letting people down here.
Cheerios,
The Sklogs
Bad Movie Twins 