Assassin’s Creed is my favorite video game franchise. I also think it’s the best chance we may ever have to get a good movie out of a video game franchise of the ones in work right now (no, not betting on the Tetris trilogy). The first trailer was awesome and did a fantastic job explaining the premise of the games. I really, really hate this second trailer. It’s a mess. If you didn’t know anything about the games or hadn’t seen the first trailer, you’d have no idea what the heck was going on, plus it ties the first Star Trek Beyond trailer for most off-putting use of music in a trailer this year. A minute into it, I just wanted it to end. Now Star Trek Beyond (which I tragically have not seen yet) generally got very good reviews, so you can’t judge it by the trailer alone, but my expectations and hopes for this took a nosedive. Assassin’s Creed opens December 21, 2016.
Michael Fassbender leads the cast of Assassin’s Creed and is joined by Marion Cotillard (The Dark Knight Rises, Inception), Michael K. Williams (“The Wire,” Paul Feig’s upcoming Ghostbusters), Jeremy Irons (“The Borgias”) and Brendan Gleeson (Edge of Tomorrow). Justin Kurrzel (Macbeth) is directing the film.
Based on the Ubisoft game franchise, the Assassin’s Creed movie follows a character by the name of Callum Lynch who, through a revolutionary technology that unlocks his genetic memories, is able to experience the adventures of his ancestor, Aguilar, in 15th Century Spain. Callum discovers he is descended from a mysterious secret society, the Assassins, and amasses incredible knowledge and skills to take on the oppressive and powerful Templar organization in the present day.
Assassin’s Creed is set for a December 21, 2016 release.
Here is what I think after watching both trailers… and I could be way off base here, because I am not familiar with the games themselves… but this trailer (which IS as bad as you said) is, perhaps, the studio panicking, because they wanted a lowest-common-denominator action flick (it’s based on a video game after all) and instead it’s fairly sophisticated, with a highly original premise. So of course they’re trying to sell it as a loud stupid action movie. From their perspective, this is damage control. This marketing campaign might end up sinking the movie, even if the movie turns out to be really good.
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That’s my fear, plus opening five days after Rogue One was ambitious placement. If they’d stuck it in this month, it could have really dominated a weak lineup of underperforming, uninteresting releases. The first trailer rang true to the game, and if you take the annoying graphics and metal music out, that visual style hasn’t changed. It’s just packaged like crap. This film’s going to need good reviews because the back half of December is a logjam of potential awesome with Rogue One looming over them all. I had to check to see this was a Fox film, because it seems like the kind of idiot thing WB would do.
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