Assassin's Creed - Part 1

[Sithborg]

Yeah, that is just a happy coincidence.

 

[terry78]

Yeah, most movies are opening this Wednesday because Christmas falls on a Sunday. I know Fences is actually opening on that day for some reason. On that note, it's weird how late Hanukkah starts this year.

 

[brandeezy89]

Time's Review (Negative)

http://time.com/4605625/review-assassins-creed-movie/

The true power of the Catholic Church can never be adequately measured. Had Jesus not anointed Peter the first Pope, there would be no Dan Brown novels, no Pedro Almodóvar movies, no tartan mini-skirt school uniforms. And there would be no Assassin’s Creed video game. No Assassin’s Creed novels. No Assassin’s Creed movie. That would mean one less opportunity to see Michael Fassbender shirtless. Our world would be a dark one.

Assassin’s Creed the movie is fairly innocuous. It’s also cheerless and dumb. Michael Fassbender stars as Callum Lynch, a death-row criminal who’s executed before our eyes, only to be brought back to life by a beautiful scientist in flawless red lipstick and a nunlike hairdo. That would be Sofia (Marion Cotillard), and she has a special task for Callum, who is descended from Aguilar, one of the bravest members of a line of freedom fighters known as the Assassins. In 15th Century Andalusia, Aguilar and his cohorts devoted their lives to fighting the Knights Templar—Catholic alert!—a hoity-toity religious military order whose goal was to procure the Apple of Eden, a gizmo with the power to deprive man of free will. (Disappointingly, it’s not even a real apple.) Sofia has built an elaborate apparatus that, when hooked into Callum’s spine, allows him to “regress” into the past and become Aguilar. Her goal—and it’s the goal of her father as well, a Templar baddie played by the silky-cool Jeremy Irons—is to use Aguilar to figure out where, exactly, the long-lost Apple of Eden is hiding. When Callum regresses to become Aguilar, there is much fighting with handily concealed knife blades and so forth.

The plot of Assassin’s Creed is very confusing. No, scratch that: It’s a mess. You might not really care, but the movie—directed by Justin Kurzel, the Australian director whose last picture was a supergritty version of Macbeth, also starring Fassbender and Cotillard—is rife with squandered opportunities. At one point, some sort of 15th century enemy Knight scrambles along a rooftop on his horse. This is fascinating: A horse on a rooftop! How did he get there? How did he get down? These are questions the movie never answers. Cool image, though. There are other flaws: When Fassbender as Callum is shirtless, Assassin’s Creed at least nods in the direction of camp juiciness. But in the Aguilar sequences, Fassbender wears a robe of suitably penitential rough cloth, befitting the character’s seriousness of purpose. Yawn.

The 15th Century wasn’t a great time to be alive, and it’s not even such nice place to visit. We went all the way back in time with Assassin’s Creed and all we got was this lousy apple. It’s not even a real one.

Not surprised

 

[Dark_Lord]

I read that IGN gave it a 6.5, although they took the review down and all the other reviews seem to be negative so far. I was also watching Collider Movie Talk and they also mentioned that it sucked. That's too bad. I had hopes and I liked the last trailer they released.

So... What's the next one that might break the videogame movie curse? Tomb Raider?

 

[harlequinade]

Oh man IGN likes everything so 6,5/10 there is like...3 or 4 in reality

 

[TheVileOne]

So IGN and TIME both broke embargo? How the heck does that happen?

 

[Paradox1]

New York daily news also

 

[harlequinade]

The Wrap is killing it too

 

[Dark_Lord]

Forbes as well.

 

[TheVileOne]

Embargo is over. Here's my official review.

Verdict: It ain't good.

Bad acting and performances all around. Virtually no character development. 15th century scenes are nothing more than action fodder. Dumb characters acting exceedingly dumb. Marion Cotillard's character, Dr. Sofia Rikkin, is a complete and utter fool.

I hated the film visually. Everything looks so dreary and dull. The past scenes never look epic or sweeping. Everything is obscured by this awful sunrise/sunset glare throughout the sequences. Not to mention copius fog, dust and smoke. It never really looks cool and inspiring like in the games, "I'm walking around ancient Jerusalem or Industrial Revolution England!"

 

[harlequinade]

Ehrlich who wrote straight up embarrassing review of Rogue One liked it and gave it B- http://www.indiewire.com/2016/12/assassins-creed-review-best-video-game-movie-fassbender-1201760460/

 

[LoganGambit87]

collider hated it too
http://collider.com/assassins-creed...paign=collidersocial&utm_medium=social#poster

 

[Dark_Lord]

Campea from Collider hated the basic plot with the Templars and the Apple of Eden, which I would have been fine with if that was the only thing he didn't like. He mentioned that no characters were likeable and there wasn't really any character development. He did like the look of the film in the sequences taking place in the past, but the majority of the film takes place in the present. He also liked the choreography but that was ruined by shaky-cam and constantly cutting to Fassbender in the Animus during the actual fights .

 

[TheVileOne]

The implication is that wearing the working hidden blade gauntlets helps with the memory sync. I don't know how or why, but whatever.

 

[Kahran Ramsus]

Shaky cam too? Did this movie do anything right?

 

[LoganGambit87]

LOL so i read that 90% of the movie takes place in present time no wonder this movie sucks

 

[Greens]

This is no surprise. The trailers were awfully generic.

 

[TheVileOne]

Shaky cam too? Did this movie do anything right?

It seems Kurzel fancies himself as like a Christopher Nolan type but his style comes off more like Zack Snyder.

But yeah, it was hard to get into the 15th Century scenes. Bad cinematography. Everything just looked so hazy and badly colored. We never really get to take in the environments and some crisp amazing visuals.

 

[TheVileOne]

LOL so i read that 90% of the movie takes place in present time no wonder this movie sucks

Yup, and more than 90 percent of those scenes are dreary, dour, dull and lacking anything compelling to speak of.

This movie is a disaster.

Do we have any directors left who will really just shoot amazing sets and let the action unfold and let us take in all that amazing production design and visual effects work? Why does everything have to have its color removed or over-saturated or made out to look ugly. Why can't we have lush epic looking adventure style visuals anymore?

 

[Kahran Ramsus]

Verdict: It ain't good.

Bad acting and performances all around. Virtually no character development. 15th century scenes are nothing more than action fodder. Dumb characters acting exceedingly dumb. Marion Cotillard's character, Dr. Sofia Rikkin, is a complete and utter fool.

I hated the film visually. Everything looks so dreary and dull. The past scenes never look epic or sweeping. Everything is obscured by this awful sunrise/sunset glare throughout the sequences. Not to mention copius fog, dust and smoke. It never really looks cool and inspiring like in the games, "I'm walking around ancient Jerusalem or Industrial Revolution England!"

Ouch! It sounds like you even liked Warcraft better.

 

[TheVileOne]

Warcraft was better by some margin than this. At least Warcraft you could usually make out what was going on and the color palette wasn't awful.

 

[Tacit Ronin]

I must admit I am stunned at this critical outcome. I would've never guess this, I swear on my ancestor's memories.

 

[DarthSkywalker]

Like Nate Diaz, I am not surprised. Should anyone really be? The studio seemed aware that it was crap and kind of buried. The trailers didn't help at all either.

 

[DarthSkywalker]

Warcraft was better by some margin than this. At least Warcraft you could usually make out what was going on and the color palette wasn't awful.

If this is true... ****.

 

[Consona]

With like two more revisions of the script, Warcraft could have been great, but from what I read about AC, it's really bad.