CAPSULE: Assassin's Creed (2016, Dir. Justin Kurzel)

There are these assassins who are trying to keep the Apple of Eden safe. The Knights Templar, somehow in league with the Spanish Inquisition, want the Apple so they can destroy free will and rule the world. In Mexico a kid finds his father has killed his mother. His father is dressed as one of those assassins. The kid grows up into Michael Fassbender and he is in on death row. He’s killed but Marion Cotillard wakes him up and straps him to a big machine called “the Animus” which takes him back to relive his ancestor’s memories. His ancestor is one of those assassins. Jeremy Irons likes to watch. In medieval Spain, the Sultan’s son is captured and Michael Fassbender and some woman he runs with save him. Michael Fassbender has a bad reaction to the machine and starts hallucinating assassins around him. He fights with them. He fights with the other assassin-ish people in the facility. Jeremy Irons tells him he has to choose to hook back up to the machine of his own free will and asks him to kill his father to prove his point. Marion Cotillard insists she is a scientist. Michael Fassbender takes his shirt off. A hawk flies through some smokiness. Somehow the production crew get clearance to film some scenes in the Alhambra. Michael Fassbender runs around with the assassin woman. They swan dive off buildings. Cotillard and Irons stand about watching shirtless Fassbender jump around attached to the machine. Fassbender ends up in Cadiz (a long way from Granada). The assassin-ish people in the facility turn out to be totally assassiny and they run around doing assassiny things. Shirtless Michael Fassbender stares at a helicopter. The Apple turns up in about the most obvious place ever (I’m pretty sure they didn’t have to build an elaborate memory-mining machine to think to look there) and a big conference is organised in collaboration with the Eyes Wide Shut re-enactment society. Charlotte Rampling glowers. Cotillard chooses not to be a scientist anymore. Hoody Michael Fassbender stares at London.

Yeah, no idea.

I hope they let Justin Kurzel make another film after this.

★★

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