By Jonathan Klotz
| Published
Video game movies are having a moment in Hollywood, bolstered by the runaway success of Sonic the Hedgehog and Mario, and not even Borderlands flopping can derail the momentum. Even Assassin’s Creed is benefitting from the renewed interest almost a decade after it introduced moviegoers to the “leap of faith” and the Animus. Not only is the film ranked in Max’s top ten, again, but with age and the ease of repeated viewings, has come appreciation.
A History-Spanning Adventure
Michael Fassbender not only stars in Assassin’s Creed as Callum, a man imprisoned by the Abstergo corporation, but behind the scenes, he was a driving force in getting the film made. A huge fan of the gaming franchise, Fassbender wanted to bring the series’ mix of parkour, action, and historical conspiracies to the big screen. The immediate problem though, was how to explain the concept of genetic memory, the Animus, the Apple of Eden, the Ancients, and the war between the Assassins and Templars, in one film?
Assassin’s Creed gave it the college try by showing Callum’s first steps attached to the Animus, allowing the assembled scientists to see his ancestor’s life in 1492 Spain during the Spanish Inquisition. The film bounces between the modern setting and 1492 to resolve the mystery of the Apple of Eden, while Callum and his fellow captured Assassins plot their escape from the Abstergo facility. On top of all that, there’s Callum dealing with his father issues, and the strange aftereffects of prolonged exposure to the Animus.
When Assassin’s Creed is focused on action, it’s a fun roller coaster, but the other half of the film, which explores the layers of conspiracies at the heart of the series, was too complex and too hard to explain in under two hours, that it lost the theatrical audience in the process. Ironically, that’s what makes the film ideal for streaming, since it not only rewards multiple viewings, but it’s easier for fans to replay the 1492 sequences over and over. It also helps that the movie takes after the first game in the series which, in recent years, has abandoned the parkour and modern sequences for in-depth role-playing and vast open worlds.
A Throwback To The Franchise’s Origin
Nostalgia for what the franchise used to be wasn’t enough to turn the throwback game Assassin’s Creed: Mirage into a hit, but it’s helped power the film into a perennial top hit on Max. Back in 2016, the film earned $240 million, which would be a good haul for a video game movie, except for the $120 million budget that doesn’t even account for the marketing. The disappointing total was enough for Disney, after purchasing 20th Century Fox, to cancel the sequel while it was in production, and the third film of the proposed trilogy didn’t make it off the drawing board before it was axed.
Assassin’s Creed should have been the start of a new movie franchise and though we were denied the planned trilogy, it still stands out as a bold attempt at bringing the plot and mechanics of a video game to the big screen. It’s hard to bring the exact feel of an interactive medium to a non-interactive one, but the film tried, and for that, it at least dared to fully embrace its roots instead of, say, the Resident Evil franchise, which ran away from them screaming.
Assassin’s Creed is streaming on Max.
