‘Assassin’s Creed’ Reviews Are as Bad as You Probably Expected
Poor reviews of this adaptation show Hollywood still hasn’t figured out how to break the video game curse
Greg Gilman | December 20, 2016 @ 10:47 AM
Last Updated: December 21, 2016 @ 12:00 PM
20th Century Fox
If you thought Michael Fassbender, Marion Cotillard and the director of the latest “Macbeth” adaptation could break the video game curse that has plagued Hollywood since the releases of “Super Mario Bros.” and “Double Dragon” — think again.
“Assassin’s Creed,” the adaptation of a popular Ubisoft franchise, is getting hammered by critics. Top cited offenses include a convoluted and confusing plot, lousy dialogue, and missed opportunities to make it better. The 20th Century Fox release has a mere 19 percent approval rating from 31 critics counted on Rotten Tomatoes, so far. That percentage could rise as more reviews pour in ahead of its theatrical debut on Wednesday, but with many critics citing similar complaints, it’s more likely that the approval rating will continue to drop.
But for many, the critical reaction to this video game adaption is no surprise. In fact, it’s hard to think of one that got any praise beforehand. TheWrap’s film critic Michael Nordine called the action flick that jumps between the past and present “Another Bad Video-Game Movie.”
“Fans of the video game franchise are likely to be even more disappointed than those merely looking for a historical action flick,” Nordine wrote in his review. “The plot is that most dreadful of mixes: both laughably silly and needlessly complicated.”
That’s a pretty good summation of what critics thought. Even those reviews declared “fresh” on Rotten Tomatoes aren’t singing endorsements for the $130 million movie hoping to bloom into a blockbuster franchise.
Digital Spy‘s Rosie Fletcher rules it “sort of” beats the low expectations set for video game adaptations, but “is unfortunately just the tale of a bloke killing a bunch of people and hunting for a thing.” Meanwhile, IndieWire‘s David Ehrlich described the “Assassin’s Creed” as “captivatingly bonkers” and “utterly ridiculous,” even noting the point in the plot “where s— gets silly,” but he still enjoyed the action enough to give it a B- and crave a sequel.
“Even in a year that gave us ‘Independence Day: Resurgence,’ I’m hard pressed to think of anything as convoluted and, in the end, as joyless and unrewarding as this. Yes, ‘Assassin’s Creed’ is attempting to give a serious narrative origin story to the popular video game, ostensibly setting up interest in possible future films. But it’s hard to even feign interest in this one, let alone what might come next. Director Justin Kurzel’s film embodies the worst tendencies of modern blockbusters to feel not like a full movie, but a tease for what’s to come – a television pilot on the big screen.”
“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.”
“For years we’ve heard moans that video-game movies are jinxed. Unfortunately, ‘Assassin’s Creed’ won’t lift that curse. Not even with stars like Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard, and the game‘s creator, Ubisoft, as a producer. If you’re unfamiliar with the game, you may be confused by what’s going on and why anyone would even bother playing it. If you have played, you’ll wonder how the moviemakers could mess things up so badly and squander the game‘s rich tapestry of stories.”
“There’s a lot to snicker at in ‘Assassin’s Creed,’ though maybe — to tinker with a quote from ‘Ghost World’s’ Enid Coleslaw — it’s so bad it goes past good but not quite back to bad again. There’s something sublimely ridiculous about a movie that begins with one of those instantly confusing text crawls, this one about the Knights Templar; where great actors (who, again, had just done the Bard) are forced to say things like, “The apple, it’s in your grasp!”; where the hero’s mission eventually involves a trip to Christopher Columbus’ tomb. It’s like a Uwe Boll video game movie (see: ‘Alone in the Dark,’ ‘Bloodrayne’) only with first-rate production values and actors who are the opposite of washed-up. When Jeremy Irons and Charlotte Rampling saunter in as the king and queen of evil or whatever, it’s hard to write it off as your normal everyday shambles. Whatever it is, it’s barely an ‘Assassin’s Creed’ movie.”
“It’s too elementary and obvious to claim that the shortcomings that exist in Justin Kurzel’s ‘Assassin’s Creed’ merely derive from the simple fact it’s based on a video game. While it can’t be disputed, the track record for triumphant endeavours of such film adaptations is remarkably low, that’s not why this film is such a mess. No, ‘Assassin’s Creed’ struggles because it’s a disjointed affair, absurd and irreverent without any self-awareness, taking itself far too seriously and lacking that vital injection of adventure.”
“Midway through the picture, I gave up rooting for anyone–and instead cheered the set designers whose dazzling 15th-century Spanish interiors and cool modern laboratories are, time and again, kneecapped by director Justin Kurzel’s fetish for smoke and dust. Man, nobody can win in this game. It’s borderline impossible to follow the plot of this incoherent mess of potentially beautiful images…”
“‘What the f— is going on?’ mutters Michael Fassbender‘s character through clenched teeth, reasonably early on in the course of this interminable film, based on the lucrative video game series ‘Assassin’s Creed.’ You can imagine each of its stars – Fassbender, Marion Cotillard, Jeremy Irons, Essie Davis – saying much the same thing while looking through the script, before being directed to the fee on the last page of their contract. It’s an action movie, with dollops of thriller and splodges of Dan Brown conspiracy; and hardly five minutes go by without someone in a monk’s outfit doing a bit of sub-parkour jumping from the roof of one building to another. And yet it is at all times mysteriously, transcendentally boring. I bet playing the game is much more exciting. But then getting Fassbender to slap a coat of Dulux on the wall of his hi-tech prison cell and monitoring the progressive moisture-loss would be more exciting.”
The 30 Best Video Games of All Time, Ranked (Photos)
What makes a video game "the best"? Technical prowess? A moving plot? A huge amount of features? It's a difficult concept to nail down for an entertainment medium as young and as all over the place as gaming. But we tried our best -- even so, you will definitely not agree with us.
30. "Roller Coaster Tycoon 3" (2004) It wasn't the first game to let you design a roller coaster and then ride it, but it was definitely the best and most robust example. You could build whatever you wanted, and it was one of the few games to make that claim and actually deliver something legitimately compelling.
29. "The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay" (2004) It's the story of how Riddick (played by Vin Diesel even in the video games) got those cool glowing eyes, and it's also a thrilling sneakfest that makes the "Metal Gear Solid" franchise seem super quaint.
28. "Uncharted 2: Among Thieves" (2009) The closest an action game ever came to really emulating the experience of watching a (very long) movie. While its sequels were major regressions from that peak, "Uncharted 2" remains representative of an ideal that, quite possibly, no game will ever fully realize.
27. "Zork" (1977) This is a game experienced entirely through text -- thus the label "interactive fiction" being thrown around a lot -- a type of thing that was pretty common as personal computing started to become a thing back in the '70s and '80s in the early days of gaming. But "Zork" was operating on a whole other level from its peers, allowing a complexity in player interaction and a depth to its storytelling that was unheard.
26. "SimCity 2000" (1993) The best way to describe "SimCity 2000" is as a sand castle simulator. You spend hours painstakingly constructing your masterpiece, and then when you're done you tear it down in a cathartic fit -- thanks to its surprisingly robust disaster scenarios, which you can trigger on demand. The series never bested this one.
25. "Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2" (2000) Strategy video games rarely manage to be all that accessible, but "Red Alert 2" was both funny and easy to get into -- moreso than any of the other "Command & Conquer" games before or after. And so it remains a delightful gem worth revisiting every once in a while.
24. "Full Throttle" (1995) An example of what in the '90s was referred to as an "adventure game," "Full Throttle" today feels like the direct predecessor to the part of the current wave of independent games with well told stories that has adopted a similar visual style -- "Kentucky Route Zero," "Kathy Rain," and the like. But it remains just as good as (almost) all of the games it inspired.
23. "Super Mario RPG" (1996) One of the rare examples of a Japanese RPG that was truly accessible to the masses, and it remains one of the best examples of that genre because of that.
22. "Prison Architect" (2015) On the surface it's just another simulation-style game in which you have to design and manage some kind of real world thing. But by tackling the specific topic it does, "Prison Architect" delves into issues in a way few games do. And the depths of depravity it allows the player to delve into can teach you a lot.
21. "FTL" (2012) A journey through space, fraught with bad luck at every turn. You'll probably never win it, and that's part of the fun. That's also why it's a work of art -- "FTL" is really about your life.
20. "Alpha Protocol" (2010) Though it's functionally awkward in a lot of ways, "Alpha Protocol" is a delight if you can look past those physical flaws and embrace its glorious personality. One of the greatest examples of a flawed but compellingly ambitious video game.
19. "Far Cry 2" (2008) Publisher Ubisoft has spent the past decade putting out open world video games that it insists have no political agenda -- except for "Far Cry 2," the game that seems to apply a big ole "Heart of Darkness" metaphor to the very open world genre it inhabits.
18. "World in Conflict" (2007) Set during a Soviet invasion of the U.S. during an alternate version of the late '80s, this forgotten gem was an attempt to build a cinematic experience around a strategy game -- which probably seems counterintuitive but it actually works pretty well. It remains the only game to ever do something like that, so bonus points for ambition.
17. "Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne" (2003) Full of love, irony and tragedy, "Max Payne 2" is still unlike any other video game in the way it manages to so effectively wallow in the misery of its lead with a masculine detachment that never quite crosses over into macho territory. You just get Max in a way that's very unusual for a game.
16. "Deus Ex: Invisible War" (2003) Though popularly maligned, "Invisible War" actually represents the delightful paranoia of "Deus Ex" better than any other entry in the series. It doesn't take itself too seriously, even while it tells a story in which everyone -- and I mean everyone -- is out to get you for some reason or another.
15. "Counter-Strike" (1999) There can only be one king of the online multiplayer shooters, and "Counter-Strike" (along with its various updates and remakes, like the recent "Counter-Strike: Global Offensive") remains the one thanks to its still-unusual match rules: once you die, you're done for the entire round. It's thrilling in a way that other online shooter simply aren't.
14. "Splinter Cell: Double Agent" (2006) The tale of "Splinter Cell" is one of unfulfilled potential, usually, but "Double Agent" was the high point. A brilliantly twisty spy story in which nobody knows who the good guys are, and even your own alignment is in question as you change sides over and over.
13. "The Dig" (1995) As much as a game like this could ever be considered an event, "The Dig" certainly qualified thanks to the involvement of Steven Spielberg and Orson Scott Card, as well as a novelization by Alan Dean Foster. It was extremely heady, which lessened its appeal somewhat, but that also made it the best example of the point-and-click "adventure" genre of the '90s.
12. "Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Haovc" (2010) This Japanese visual novel/adventure game about a group of teenagers being locked in a school and forced to murder each other (without getting caught!) is surprisingly enthralling despite its insistence on never staying grounded at any point. "Danganronpa" is both silly and sweet, and among the most human video games I've ever played.
11. "Portal 2" (2011) Comedy in video games is rarely any good, but the comedy in "Portal 2" is spectacular. That's it's one of the greatest puzzle games ever is just a bonus.
10. "Red Dead Redemption" (2010) You'd think the Western genre would be a natural fit for video games, but it's rare that anyone makes the attempt. It could be that "Red Dead Redemption" worked so well that other developers are afraid of trying. If we're going to be stuck with one big Western game, though, might as well be this one.
9. "Burnout Paradise" (2008) The only driving game that ever mattered, a non-stop adrenaline rush through an open city designed to let you fly -- both in the "driving real fast and never slowing down" sense and the "making sick jumps off conveniently positioned ramps" sense. It's perfect.
8. "Star Wars: TIE Fighter" (1994) Subtlety tends to be something video games are very bad at, but somehow the game about flying a starfighter in service of the fascist Empire pulls it off. It turns out it is possible to humanize those faceless grunts.
7. "Half-Life 2" (2004) and its sequel episodes It's a chaotic experience, spanning a pile of different genres seemingly at random -- but it works. Even more than a decade later everything about it just feels right. More right than the many more recent games that have tried and failed to recapture its magic.
6. "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas" (2003) Many games promise a virtual open world in which you can go anywhere and do anything, but "San Andreas" might be the only one that actually delivers on that promise.
5. "Mass Effect 3" (2012) It rightly catches a ton of flack for its awful ending, but the core of the experience -- beautifully curated action vignettes that are roughly the length of an episode of a TV drama sans commercials -- is nearly perfect. Developer Bioware may have stumbled upon the ideal way to tell a story in a game like this.
4. "Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2: The Sith Lords" (2005) The best "Star Wars" stories are the ones that subvert our perceptions of what define the franchise, and "KOTOR 2" is one of the definitive examples on that, taking a close look at what happens after the war is won.
3. "Call of Duty: Black Ops 2" (2013) One of the few games that tells a story that changes based on the player's actions -- while being confident enough in its vision to not tell the players it's happening. It matters just as much, of course, that "Black Ops 2" is as great in execution as it is in concept.
2. "The Witcher 3" (2015) The whole is less than the sum of its parts, but those parts -- huge open world, an expansive story that has time to breathe, robust combat -- are so good that it's almost forgivable that they don't all gel. For now, "The Witcher 3" is about as good as it gets for an action adventure video game.
1. "Gods Will Be Watching" (2014) A video game with a well told story which the player isn't really in control of his own ability to make it through. For example, completing the story requires you to survive a game of Russian roulette. This is a profound subversion of the standard video game power fantasy.
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“Call of Duty,” “Grand Theft Auto” and more in honor of #NationalVideoGamesDay
What makes a video game "the best"? Technical prowess? A moving plot? A huge amount of features? It's a difficult concept to nail down for an entertainment medium as young and as all over the place as gaming. But we tried our best -- even so, you will definitely not agree with us.
