This is a review for people who have seen the film. The review has spoilers and I am covering the film from the storytelling perspective.
*Spoilers follow*
I need to start with the disclaimer that I have never played an Assassin’s Creed game so I went into the story with an open mind. I thought it would be in the same vein as Prince of Persia, which I thought was entertaining if not pithy or involving.
The Positive: The premise seemed interesting, where your protagonist could relive the lives of his/her ancestor through a device known as the animus. The scenes set in the past were interesting due to the location backdrop, the costumes, the parkour and the fact that it involved a female and a male assassin, with a relationship that you wanted to know more about.
The Negative: The storyline had a lot of plot holes.
The scenes set in the protagonist’s youth did not make a lot of sense. Why was Cal’s (Michael Fassbender) mother killed for example?
The scenes set in modern times did not explain Sofia’s (Marion Cotillard) motivation beyond that she was a supporter of free will and her father (Jeremy Irons) was not.
The relationship between Cal’s father (Brendan Gleeson) and Cal was not fully explored and came across as extremely shallow. The McGuffin, that everyone was searching for was purported to be the world’s salvation but what was it supposed to do? Why was it so important? All we got was a green light show at the end of the film. Was it worth so many lives? I don’t need to see the device if they could explain what the device was supposed to do. The film talked about free will and suppressing it. How did the device fit into that framework at its unveiling? Wouldn't the secret society be adversely affected by this device?
Fatal Flaws: You don’t care about any of the supporting characters There is absolutely no emotional investment when any of these characters die. The dialogue and the story needed to be a lot stronger in order for the audience to be engaged. Case in point, the most interesting parts of the film feature huge sections without any dialogue.
The Future Of The Franchise: The premise is interesting enough that I could see a franchise where every film could relive a section of history through this prism, giving us historical fantasy. The characters need to be fleshed out and the story needs to engage the audience. That would be the only reason I would come back for a sequel. Right now there is a lot of room for improvement.
Too Long; Didn’t Read (TL;DR): Skip this film.
Score: 1/5.