Like his shiny set of Assassin blades, Michael Fassbender dual-wields the main roles in Assassin's Creed - those of present day thug Callum Lynch and Spanish Inquisition ancestor Aguilar. It means Fassbender is always the film's focus, the sharp end of its blade designed to ensure Ubisoft's biggest gaming series penetrates ever further into the public consciousness. But what a mess he's forced to make to try and get its point across.
Fans of the series should expect a whirlwind tour of the Assassin's Creed greatest hits - splendidly reconstructed historical settings, wall-running and roof-jumping fisticuffs, philosophical meanderings over a shiny Apple of Eden McGuffin - but all of the games' poorer traits make the leap to the big screen, too: weak characterisation, humourless exposition, and a story which exists simply to string one punch-up to the next.
The film's highlights are easily found in its lavish historical scenes, its soaring city-spanning camera pans overlooking the dusty streets and polished palaces of Spanish Inquisition-era Andalucia. Fassbender's introduction as Aguilar bubbles with promise, and the elaborate chase and fight sequences which follow are pure video game on a Hollywood budget. And yet the majority of the film is spent away from these excursions into the past, trapped with Aguilar's descendant in a corporate basement.
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