There is no doubt that Assassin’s Creed is one of the most important video game sagas of recent years, as evidenced by its latest installment, Assassin’s Creed Mirage. However, the franchise has had its share of setbacks over the years, and although it has reached an interesting balance, the days when it was one of the most successful series in the industry are far behind it.
The reason? Actually there are many, and one of the main ones is the large number of games that Ubisoft has released about the brand. But also of great importance is the movie that was made of Assassin’s Creed in 2016 and which was an spontaneous failure that made it very clear that, at least at that time, it was difficult to adapt video games to film.
What could have been… and what wasn’t.
But what exactly went wrong with the Assassin’s Creed movie? Certainly, its protagonist, Michael Fassbender, was not to blame for such a bad delivery. And neither was its setting, which centered on Inquisition Spain, a perfect place for a film in the saga to take place. Its main problem, evidently, was the script.
While in the Assassin’s Creed video games we see small glimpses of the present day, almost everything is focused on living the experience of being in another era through the protagonist’s ancestors. However, in the film this was not the case; both stories were mixed up a lot, and while the one in the past had some interest, the one in the present was of no interest to anyone… and it turned out to be the one that had the climax of the film.
This meant that the film did not have much narrative interest, something that is added to a script that only follows the classic formula but does not offer anything beyond. And the fact that it was a film without its own identity didn’t help either; it was based on copying the good things from the game but didn’t offer anything beyond that… and that made it lose all authenticity.
Finally, the video game experience of having a great adventure and interesting stealth techniques was completely lost. It was a run-of-the-mill action movie that was little different from Ubisoft’s other big film flop, Prince of Persia. So, unfortunately, we had another bump in the wheel of a studio full of ups and downs.
