History, which is foundational to the captivatingly bonkers story of Justin Kurzel’s “Assassin’s Creed,” tells us that this should be a very bad movie. For one thing, this dense, dour, and oft-delayed holiday spectacle is based on a popular series of video games — a grim omen in a year that brought us the likes of “Warcraft” and “Ratchet & Clank.” For another, Kurzel’s moody adaptation is told on a massive scale, budgeted to compete with other franchise monstrosities like “Rogue One” and “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them” — the familiar trouble with making a film like this is that it’s too expensive to afford any risks.

But “Assassin’s Creed,” in which Michael Fassbender’s blank protagonist quite literally repeats…

"We work in the dark to serve the light.
We are assassins."

Bold, cold and a mess to behold; Assassin's Creed is a fascinatingly weird movie, but one that succeeds pretty wonderfully. Video games have rarely made a seamless transition from console to cinema; they've earned themselves quite the sour reputation. What Assassin's Creed does so well is it allows the game's strengths to take center stage in the film. Impossibly high dives, historically fetishized locations, sweet kills and absurd acrobatics are why the franchise has succeeded, and naturally it's also why the film succeeds. Kurzel doesn't attempt to weave some narrative over those things, but rather he builds a story entirely composed by them. The film bravely flips from…

Assassin's Creed is a weird film. It's fast paced, the action is fun, some of the set design and camera work is great, and the costumes are beautiful. It's also boring, long, and at odds with itself.

Most of the Assassin's Creed games have modern day sections where they unload a lot of exposition and backstory. That is what I think a big problem is with this film. The modern day scenes slows everything down to a screeching halt while the Animus scenes are fun. The games, for the most part, are filled with rich stories and entertaining action so it's a shame the film doesn't quite live up to them.

Sidenotes:
- I wish they would have just told…

(Old impressions, not based on a recent viewing)

Huuuuge misfire. I haven't gamed in a long time, but I'm still nostalgic and I want to see a time when we'll get good video game movies, but this wasn't in it. Assassin's Creed inexplicably makes the decision to base most of it's narrative on modern times and spend less time in the past. Nobody cares about the current time story. You do an Assassin's Creed story by introducing the whole concept quickly and then throw your guy in the Animus and have him do something in the past and when he's done that you bring him back. That's a 20-80 split between current time and past time, not 60-40 which is…