Assassin's Creed - Okay - DoubleFeaturePreachers

Assassin's Creed - Okay

8/30/2017

Stars: Michael Fassbender, Marion Cotillard, Jeremy Irons
Director: Justin Kurzel
Run Time: 1 hour, 55 minutes
Action | Drama | Science Fiction | 2016

The extent of my video game knowledge starts and ends with Mario Party. Yes, I had at least heard of Assassin’s Creed, but I didn’t know anything about other than - what I had assumed - it was a video game where you killed people. Now, that may not be the case, I’m just guessing. The film had a pretty cool science fiction story with it, but my goodness it was just boring to me. Basically, this murderer is sentenced to death by lethal injection, which it what the movie opens with. After being injected, he wakes up in a compound, somehow brought back to life by these scientists. Why you ask? Well they are trying to link the human gene that supposedly carries the tendencies to be a murderer.

Being a scientist myself, I’ve ready articles of this idea. Honestly, not sure I think it’s a thing, but still an interesting question all together. For this movie, the whole purpose is to link the lineage between the murderers today and the Assassin’s Creed from hundreds of years ago. The science fiction portion of the movie was cool, and the machine that imprinted the ancestor’s memories in the patient was cool, yet farfetched to say the least. Pretty much the whole movie is the guy being hooked up to the machine to dive into the memories of an assassin in hopes to find the coveted Apple of Eden.

The effects in this movie were good, the giant machine arm was fascinating and there was plenty of action that should have kept me entertained. But for some reason I just found it boring. I will say it has a good setup for other movies if they decide to continue with it. Along with him diving into his ancestors past, we are also graced with the memories of himself i.e. his mother’s death and keeping the brotherhood alive and the destiny that was set forth before him that he must carry on.

Fun science fiction concept with little to be excited about. I’m going to give this movie an “okay” rating. I’d only recommend it to those who like 1: video games of this type and 2: know about Assassin’s Creed game and backstory already. It was a bit too much to take in to be honest. Even though the run time is just under 2 hours, I remember thinking to myself (or perhaps stating out loud) when it was going to be over. The only part I liked (other than the science) was the final scene in the Templar’s reception. (2/5)