Review: Assassin's Creed

Another movie hit by the curse surrounding game adaptations

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This week, another adaptation of video games debuts in Brazilian cinemas. This time, the chosen game was assassins Creed. Starring and produced by Michael Fassbender, the film was for years the apple of the eye of the actor. However, although his passion is visible in the way he gives himself to the role, the work cannot escape the apparent curse that surrounds the adaptations of electronic games for the cinema. Because, like almost all films that looked for material in video games, assassins Creed is very bad.

The protagonist of the story is Carl Lynch (Michael Fassbender). Executed in prison after being sentenced to death, he is resurrected a week later by the doctor Sofia (Marion Cotillard). Working for Rikkin (Jeremy Irons), her father, in a company called Abstergo, is interested in finding a cure for violence. To do this, you need to find an ancient artifact called The Apple of Eden. According to tradition, this artifact holds a power over man's most primitive instincts. Since his last appearance was in 1492, when he was under the power of a man named Aguilar, a member of the Assassins' Creed, Sofia uses a device that is capable of creating projections from the memories contained in a person's genetics. Since Aguilar is one of his ancestors, Carl is the only person who can use this device and find the artifact.

Adapted by Michael Lesslie, Adam Cooper and Bill Collage, the script for assassins Creed it is a complete disaster. In addition to telling a strange story that even the most profound suspension of disbelief is not able to make the viewer believe what they are seeing, the starting point of the feature is so absurd that the audience will be asking themselves the following question throughout the projection: "why is a woman who has the power to resuscitate a person interested in finding a cure for violence ?!" After all, is there a scientific discovery more important than that of the resurrection? It is impossible to buy the idea that Sofia is concerned about violence in the world after making a discovery of this magnitude.

Assassin's Creed

Building frighteningly bad lines (the times when Rikkin puts her daughter alongside great scientists and Sofia quotes a phrase from Robert Oppenheimer to his father, they are particularly horrible), the writers also err at all times to invest in expository dialogues to explain the “motivations” of the characters and the functioning of some technological devices. The recurring use of this resource only serves to make explicit the total lack of visual creativity of the writers and directors when it comes to passing on vital information from the film's history to the viewer. Furthermore, in addition to getting tired over time, the abundant use of these dialogues is disrespectful to the public, since it is clear that those responsible for the film do not trust our ability to make associations and interpret images.

However, it is the poverty seen in the construction of the characters that puts everything to lose. As you Rikkin and Sofia are one-dimensional and uniquely defined by your personal goals (in the end, there is a change in the opinion of Sofia which is totally improbable within the plot and was only placed as a hook for possible sequences), Carl he is a completely unsympathetic homicide (not even Fassbender's charisma makes him sympathetic) who acts and does the things he is asked to do without any motivation or goal on the horizon. In addition to the spectator having difficulty in relating to the protagonist from the beginning, the cloudiness around the elements that move him in the course of the story makes the experience of accompanying him into something innocuous and unrewarding.

Assassin's Creed

Technically, the work is as poor as the script. Brought by Fassbender to the role of director, Justin Kurzel (the director of Macbeth) and his team make a series of choices that, in addition to being wrong, are totally unjustifiable. By investing in slow motion cameras that only have an effect and countless useless aerial shots, Kurzel and Adam Arkapaw, the director of photography, paint the scenes that take place in the past with a yellow that constantly flirts with the sepia tint and whose only justification, in addition to the obvious use of this color to narrate past events, is to reflect the warmth of the Andalusian desert landscapes . There is no relationship between the colors and tones used with the characters' inner world. Furthermore, the 3D is applied by the two in the wrong way, since at no time do they explore the depth of field (not even in the expected jump scene the feature is used correctly!)

Also experienced assembly problems (Christopher Tellefsen, the editor, uses an alternating montage between past and present events that compromises the rhythm of history and leaves the plot dragged in some moments - in this sense, the second act is extremely problematic), the film suffers greatly from the excess of effects special (the aforementioned aerial shots are created entirely by computer), which make it clear to the viewer that they were made digitally (nowadays, it is absurd to present effects as precarious as those seen in this film!). The only technical aspect that deserves to be highlighted is the soundtrack, which, moving between different genres, manages to rock the viewer and even make him momentarily involved with the story in certain scenes.

With one of the most anticlimactic climaxes of recent years and uninspired performances (Fassbender is the best), assassins Creed it was the hope of game fans and moviegoers around the world that, at last, a film would be made to match the game on which it was based. However, as it is possible to feel at the beginning of the work and confirm at the end of it, it was not this time that the games were justly adapted. Unfortunately, assassins Creed will appear alongside atrocities like Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, the series resident Evil and so many others.

Text written by Miguel Forlin.

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assassins-creed-resenha-criticaDespite the visible passion in the interpretation of Michael Fassbender, the work cannot escape the apparent curse that surrounds the adaptations of electronic games for the cinema.

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