Wednesday 11 January 2017

A Pinoy @ The Movies: Assassin's Creed

This is why I liked the film: a sci-fi movie with 15th century Europe origins, lots of stunts and a Da Vinci Code-ish conspiracy!

When I saw the official trailer of Assassin's Creed, the interesting BASE jumping scenes from medieval Spain's towers and its intriguing genetics-slash-reincarnation-slash-medieval-Spain history were all I needed to decide to watch this. (BASE stands for buildings, antenna, spans, Earth - from which a BASE jumper jumps or takes off.)

As the movie's title says, Assassin's Creed is the story about assassins, whose main obligation is to fight the Knights Templar, the Pope's private army. This reminded me of Angelina Jolie's Wanted, where she also played an assassin for the Fraternity, a group of assassins who kill to change the course of human history.

The trained killers in Assassin's Creed were like ninjas who perfected the art of parkour, running through the narrow alleys of Madrid, jumping from rooftops and balconies while engaging their enemies in hand-to-hand combat. They also love to stand on rooftops to enjoy the view of the city.

The stunt director, as well as the stuntmen and women, deserves a Templar knighthood because, one, the action scenes in the buildings and narrow alleys of 15th-century Madrid and on the plains of Spain (where the rain mainly stays according to Eliza Dolittle!) were captivating, and, two, those stunts were not easy to do while wearing thick robes and passing through cafés serving yummy churros con chocolaté, and resisting to stop by. Ja-ja-ja!

Michael Fassbender, who played Magneto in X-Men: First Class, plays two characters: Aguilar de Nerha, an assassin during medieval Spain, and Callum, a convicted killer condemned to die through lethal injection in 2016. 

Marion Cotillard plays a scientist, who runs a high-tech laboratory in Spain, but whose accent is British when she's happy and becomes American when she's inside the lab.

Her father in the movie is played by Jeremy Irons, one of my favorite actors, who was elegantly sinister, just like in Reversal of Fortune, the movie that won him an Oscar.

Unlike Da Vinci Code, Assassin's Creed is more like an action film with a dash of sci-fi, conspiracy, and a few Spanish language lessons. Yes, if you speak a little Spanish like I do, you'd probably test your proficiency against the English subtitles while the actors deliver their Spanish lines. And you'd probably also realize that you badly need to review a lot of your Spanish lessons, too! Ja-ja-ja!

I didn't know this movie was based on a video-game series. But even if you're not a fan of the game, or even if you don't have an X-Box to play with after, you'd still enjoy the action scenes, the story and the Spanish lessons.



My favorite quote of the movie?

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

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