Assassin’s Creed

A film by Justin Kurzel Blaine: I’ve never played the video game, but I am familiar with it and I love Michael Fassbender, Marion Cotillard and Jeremy Irons. I thought it would be exciting to see a movie like this and let me just say it is one of the coolest movies I’ve seen in 2016. I saw it with my dad the day it was released.

Plot (Spoiler Alert)

Cal Lynch is used to explore the memories of his ancestor, Anguilar, a Master Assassin, in order for scientists to find the location of the Apple of Eden. And while Cal explores the memories, he gains the skill of an assassin.

Blaine: “Assassin’s Creed” feels like your watching two movies because a lot of it takes place in present time in Abstergo Industries where Cal is being tested and the rest of it takes place during the Spanish Inquisition in the 15th Century where Aguilar has to retrieve the Apple of Eden and hide it from Tomas de Torquemada. There are different enemies that the characters Cal and Aguilar take on, Dr. Rikkin, Tomas de Torquemada, leader of the Templars and his enforcer, Ojeda.

Michael Fassbender plays both Cal and Aguilar. Cal starts off as someone who’s been damaged very deeply ever since he was a kid after finding his beloved mother killed and that his father is responsible. He also has a lot of hate for his father for doing it and he becomes a murderer because of that and when you first meet him he is on death row, but luckily Dr. Sofia finds him and has him spared because he can be a great use to her. And through the film he gets to learn about his family history by going through the memories of his great ancestor, Aguilar, through a machine. The more Cal taps into those memories, he learns how to fight and discovers the way of an assassin. Later in the film, Cal learns that his mother killed herself and the father was in on it to protect their son and make sure he doesn’t fall into the hands of the scientists who want to experiment on him. And towards the end Cal discovers being an assassin is his destiny.

Aguilar works with a female assassin named Maria, played by Ariane Labed, and she is a bad ass and has honor for the Creed. I believe that Aguilar and Maria were in love with each other judging by how close they look in the film and it was upsetting for me to see her die after Ojeda put a knife in her throat.

Michael Fassbender said while the script was in works, it was very important that it had female characters that had their own objective in terms of the story and they wanted to do something that was respectful for women and create some bad ass characters for Marion Cotillard and Ariane Labed.

Michael Fassbender thought it was a cool idea of DNA and memory and it made sense of a scientific memory that we carry in our DNA, the experiences and knowledge of our ancestors and that’s what attracted him to the project. He also thought the themes in the game are very sophisticated and original. To prepare himself for the role he had to play the video game which he said he was pretty bad at. In terms of the fighting in the movie, Michael said he did 95% of it. He did as much hard core training as he could, then fitness levels and then worked with the stunt team to learn the choreography. The high jumps and leap of faith were done by the stunt person.

Michael Fassbender is also one of the producers of “Assassin’s Creed”. He chose who should be brought on board to direct and co-star and that was Justin Kurzel and Marion Cotillard, who he had previously worked with them both on “Macbeth”. Michael Fassbender had a great experience with director Justin Kurzel on “Macbeth” and knows he is very visionary so Michael had contacted Justin and asked if he was interested in directing the project. Justin Kurzel loved how original the idea sounded as Michael Fassbender was explaining it to him. Justin also thought that the movie could not only satisfy gamers who are familiar with “Assassin’s Creed", but also broaden it out to a wider audience.

They wanted to respect a lot of things that are in the game and one of them is The Apple of Eden. The Apple of Eden is a silver ball that possesses the power to eliminate free will. You hardly see those capabilities in the film because the story is about finding out where it is hidden.

Michael Fassbender said everyone is trying to have Marion Cotillard in their films and who can blame them. I was happy to see Marion in another blockbuster after “The Dark Knight Rises”. Marion didn’t know anything about the video game, but when she read the script it was an introduction to what she had to learn about the world of “Assassin's Creed” and she thought it was a perfect mix between a very entertaining movie and at the same time asks very profound questions about humanity. Marion said doing an English accent isn’t always easy for her because she is French and I think she did sort of a British accent for her performance for “Assassin’s Creed”, but of course she had to do the same thing with “Macbeth”. Marion also said that one of the most amazing experiences she has had as an actress is being apart of “Macbeth” with Justin Kurzel and Michael Fassbender and she was happy to be reuniting with them again for “Assassin’s Creed” because she knew they wouldn’t disappoint.

Her character, Sofia, is a scientist who taps into peoples memories in order to connect them to their ancestors and she has been described by Marion as someone who has a passion for her work which is to find a cure against violence and that’s why she wants the Apple of Eden and she believes she is working for a noble cause. At first I thought she was supposed to be a bad guy in “Assassin’s Creed” for seven months after seeing the first trailer, but as I was getting to know her through the film it made me think maybe she’s a good guy. Sofia is a little hard to read because you can’t tell which side she is on, but my dad believes her heart is in the right place. After Rikkin gets the answer of where the Apple is, Sofia feels there is still more to learn after she sees holograms of the assassins gathering around Cal and discovers one of the assassin’s looks like her, but she is evacuated out of the building before she gets an answer.

And of course there is Jeremy Irons and everyone loves his voice. He plays Rikkin, the scientist who is in charge and is the father of Sofia. Jeremy loved Justin Kurzel’s “Macbeth” and he thought it was interesting that Justin would be making a genre movie like “Assassin’s Creed” and going into unknown territory and Jeremy thought it would be cool to be apart of it. Jeremy knew that making a movie like this would be complicated, but he would do what he was told when Justin would be directing him and he trusted everyone who was involved with the project. And Jeremy said that he was really pleased that he took that leap of faith because of how fantastic “Assassin’s Creed” looks.

Director Justin Kurzel said when you make a film as big as “Assassin’s Creed” there is the aspirations of those who want to make sequels. The great thing about “Assassin’s Creed” to Justin is that he believes it would never feel forced going into a second and third story and can go into different time periods and make each one of them feel original. It’ll depend on if fans want to see more of it, but Justin wouldn’t mind making another one. Michael Fassbender said they do have an idea of where they are going to be going next with the sequel if they get the opportunity to make it, but it is classified.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again “Assassin’s Creed” is one of the coolest movies I’ve seen of 2016 and my rating is five out of five stars.