Rated: PG-13 | Running Time: 115 Minutes
From: Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment
Available on Digital HD: March 10, 2017
Available on 4k Ultra HD, Blu-ray, DVD: March 21, 2017
Get it via : Amazon
So close, yet so far. The movie is “Assassin’s Creed,” and after I got past the fact the Assassins were protecting an Apple I was enjoying the film.
Then came the ending. Really? That’s what you leave me with, a bunch of wussy Templars?
I suppose let’s get to the good stuff of the movie…
The underlying premise of “Assassin’s Creed” is that that Assassins take an oath. This oath is to protect the Apple of Eden from the Knights of the Templar order. The Templar folks will stop at nothing to get the Apple. What is it with the Apple? Well, it supposedly is the key to free will, and if the Templars can get it they will be able to control free will, thus supposedly eliminating bad people, even though they are bad people themselves. Or something like that.
Enter young Callum. He gets to see his mother killed by his father, and needs to escape. He escapes right to a life of badness finding himself ready to die by lethal injection.
Enter Sophie (Marion Cotillard).
Somehow Cal (the older version played by Michael Fassbender) is saved from dying, and he is now in a facility run by the Templars, led by chief scientist, said Sophie. As it goes Sophie has found a way to tap into a person’s DNA, because, as it turns out for this movie, our DNA possesses all past memories of our ancestors. Cal is transformed to the past memories of his ancestors (He comes from a line of Assassins), to a time when the last known whereabouts of the Apple of Eden occurred for the Templars.
Now, up until the real fighting started, the stuff where Cal was sent back to the past memories, I was like, “Blah, blah, blah. Let’s save the Apple!” Dammit if I didn’t get sucked into the fight scenes, which were pretty awesome, and I even started liking the story a little bit more.
Things are cruising along, Cal gives up where the Apple is located, the Templars are off to get it first, but it turns out Cal has a lot of help to bust out of the joint and save the day.
Sure, I know that’s kind of a spoiler, but did you really think the Templars would get the Apple and get rid of free will?
And herein lies the problem: The ending.
All of these years of fighting, all of history of fighting for this damn Apple, and Cal pretty much waltzes into the Templar meeting where the elders are proclaiming they have the Apple, only to have Cal get it back, with the Templars leaving like lost puppies and scared wussies.
The final fight of the movie was wasted in the facility, and sure, it was a good fight. Really, though, it was that easy for Cal to get the damn thing back, and them to set up a sequel? What a let-down.
The movie is based off of the video game series, “Assassin’s Creed,” and I’m sure lots of things are left out, but for the most part it’s a decent action movie with a nice story pitting the Assassin’s, kind of the order protecting religious artifacts, against the Templars, folks who have a world order they desire, and need the artifacts to get these goals. The fight scenes are entertaining, after a bit of confusion you can figure out most of the story, but damn, that ending.
I suppose I’ll wrap up this with giving “Assassin’s Creed” a final rating of 3 stars out of 5. It could have easily been 4 or 4 1/2, but I was so let down by how easy it was for Cal to get the Apple of Eden back that I just felt cheated by one last chance at some awesome action.
The Blu-ray does have a bastion of extras, and tons of commentary, which helps fill in some gaps of the story if you need them. I agree with most of the deleted scenes being deleted, but I would have liked it if they did some of the “superimposing” of the current characters and how they back-tracked into the ancient scenes.
A nice video for home, but you might as well just turn it off after the fight scene at the facility. Cal gets the Apple back, and it’s lame how it happens.
That’s it for this one! L8R!!