Review #1,478: 'Assassin's Creed' (2016)

Despite numerous critical and commercial failures over the last quarter of a century, Hollywood just cannot turn away from trying to capitalise on an industry that continues to out to out-gross them. Video game adaptations have been a thing ever since Nintendo tried and catastrophically failed to bring to life the colourful world of Mario and Luigi with 1993's Super Mario Bros., and it's become a running joke ever since that there has never been, and will unlikely ever be, a decent console-to-big-screen adaptation. But the $1 billion-plus success of Capcom's Resident Evil franchise lingers in the minds of many a studio head, so pretty much every year a new cast and crew are put together to develop a game series with a promise to break the trend. 

While the likes of Prince of Persia and Rampage are perfectly serviceable fluff, they are way overshadowed by the unbearable awfulness of a Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, or a Max Payne, or whatever hot turd Uwe Boll is serving up that month. We have gone through the disappointment too many times to believe it when a director promises to stick to the source material, but eyebrows were raised when it came to the inevitable movie adaptation of Ubisoft's hugely successful Assassin's Creed series, which plunged you into a centuries-old battle between the Knights Templar and a shadowy group known as the Assassins. Not only was Justin Kurzel, director of the truly unsettling Australian drama Snowtown and Shakespeare epic Macbeth, to helm the film, but Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard, two of the most respected actors in the business, were also signed up for the leads. Could this be the movie to finally bridge the two mediums and match the success of its source material?

The short answer is no, but by no means is Assassin's Creed a complete disaster. Its main problem is that it depicts two worlds from two different periods in time, but forgets to make them both interesting. We have the Inquisition-era Madrid, where hooded assassins move stealthily through the crowd armed with daggers and their wits, as they attempt to bring down those in power who seek peace in the land through control. The Assassins also long for peace, but peace gained through freedom, and they don't want a McGuffin known as the Apple of Eden, which somehow possesses the power to block humanity's free will, falling into their hands. This war has raged on for centuries, and in the modern era - a glum grey world full of murky corridors and empty rooms - the Templar continue their search for the Apple, employing a new technology that allows people to travel into the memories of their ancestors, to track down the allusive object through the centuries. 

We spend the bulk of the time in the present day, as convicted criminal Cal Lynch (Fassbender) is saved from the electric chair by Sofia (Cotillard) and spends much of his time brooding in his cell over the murder of his mother. I get the feeling that writers Michael Lesslie, Adam Cooper and Bill Collage want to keep you in the dark about who the good guys are here, but as soon as Jeremy Irons arrives with his black turtleneck sweater, you pretty much know how this is going to play out. The plot is an odd mixture of overly complicated and incredibly stupid, and much of the screentime is spent having these characters explain it to each other and the audience, or at least those in the crowd who have never played the game (like myself). When Cal finally straps up and enter the body of his ancestor Aguilar de Nerha, the movie springs into life, although this bleached-out world of questionable special effects and wannabe-Indiana Jones action may have seemed all the more exiting by the sheer dreariness of the alternative. 

Directed by: Justin Kurzel

Starring: Michael Fassbender, Marion Cotillard, Jeremy Irons, Brendan Gleeson, Charlotte Rampling, Michael Kenneth Williams

Country: USA/France/UK/Hong Kong/Taiwan/Malta

Rating: **

Tom Gillespie

Review #664: 'World War Z' (2013)

They use to stumble around aimlessly, flailing rotting limbs at you pathetically as you casually jogged by, or swung a baseball bat at their heads. But no more. Yes, it seems that in the 45 years of existence that zombies have had on the big screen, they've evolved from shuffling corpses to monsters who pose a real threat. Danny Boyle taught them how to run, and made them more of a virus that we can recognise than cadavers craving brains. So now, zombies have gone global. Not just in popularity, although in that regard they certainly have with the help of AMC's The Walking Dead (amongst others), but they have swept across the globe. And only Brad Pitt can save us.

After about three years in development hell, where there were more script re-writes and cast and crew shuffling about than you could keep up with, World War Z is finally here. Based on Max Brooks' multi-layered and heavily satirical novel that is told from the points of view of many different characters that reside throughout the globe, World War Z was always going to be a hard sell. Zombies are all the rage so naturally Hollywood wants to get their fat fingers on their piece of the pie, meaning World War Z was going to be a blockbuster. So, is it the giant pile of rotting brains that most fans were expecting, proving incoherent due to the many changes made throughout production? Surprisingly, no, and in fact it proves to be almost relentlessly entertaining.

After an array of obligatory news-reel footage foreshadowing the upcoming apocalypse, Gerry Lane (Pitt), a former UN employee, with his wife Karin (Mireille Enos) and two daughters are stuck in Philadelphia traffic when the zombie attacks explode on the streets. They are saved when a helicopter ordered by an old friend of Gerry's, Deputy Secretary-General Umutoni (Fana Mokoena), flies them to a U.S. Navy vessel in the Atlantic. Gerry is then persuaded to search for the source of the cure when it is made clear that he and his family will be booted off the vessel if he refuses. His journey will span the globe from South Korea to Jerusalem to, most oddly, Wales.

It's a flimsy plot to say the least. Most zombie computer games have more depth in the story, so we simply follow Gerry as he trots the globe. But where the film fails in story and character development, it makes up for in some outstanding action scenes. We are no longer in one man versus a horde of zombies mode, this is on a global scale, and when they attack, they attack in a ferocious swarm, piling on top of each other to reach massive heights and when they engage, they fling everything they can at their victim. Director Marc Forster, who proved himself inept at action in the Bond dud Quantum of Solace (2008), redeems himself somewhat with some fine set-pieces. The attack in Israel shows off some stunning CGI, but makes sure Gerry doesn't get lost in the mayhem.

Another overwhelming positive is the performance of Brad Pitt, who proves that he can carry a franchise-seeking blockbuster with ease. Even at 50, well past the age you would expect of an action star, he injects his criminally unrecognised acting talents into what is ultimately a thinly-written role, and again shows that there is more to him that simply being really really ridiculously good-looking (to quote Derek Zoolander). The supporting cast either don't get a look in or don't last long enough to make an impact, so Enos, James Badge Dale, Elyes Gabel and Matthew Fox barely register. Fox especially, after having his entire sub-plot cut down to the point that I didn't realise he was in it until the credits rolled.

The ending, which was re-wrote by Drew Goddard, reeks of indecision. The original ending, that saw a huge zombie battle in Moscow's Red Square, was canned, probably due to the political undertones of the setting, and the new, more low-key ending, was introduced to give the movie a more satisfying and coherent climax. While by no means a bad ending, for the film to start out global only to shrink to a sneaky one-on-one final note, it's somewhat of an anti-climax. It adds actors Peter Capaldi and Moritz Bleibtreu and offers some hope with a potential cure, but it just feels like everyone on board had no hope for the film. Given World War Z's commercial success, a sequel has now been greenlit (Pitt saw this as a first of a trilogy), so ultimately, the film did what it came to do. The many relatively minor quibbles aside, this is a success. But a film can surely only survive one troubled production shoot, so the people involved with the sequel will need to clear their heads and step up their game.


Directed by: Marc Forster
Starring: Brad Pitt, Mireille Enos, Daniella Kertesz, James Badge Dale, Fana Mokoena, David Morse
Country: USA/Malta

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie