ODEON Magazine December 2016 | Page 14

14 odeon.co.uk

ALL PhotoS: © 2015 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation

H

ow do you follow
up a critically
acclaimed, bigscreen version of
one of William Shakespeare’s
best-loved and most tragic
plays? If you’re Justin Kurzel,
Michael Fassbender and
Marion Cotillard – the director
and stars of 2015’s superb
Macbeth – you sign on the
dotted line for a big-budget
film adaptation of a hugely
popular video game.
That game is, of course,
the stealth/action-adventure
Assassin’s Creed and its
cinematic reimagining is
causing great excitement
among both fans of the Ubisoft
series and avid filmgoers alike.
That’s because game-to-film
conversions – although often
commercially successful – have
a tendency to be underwhelming
affairs, pleasing neither gamers
nor critics. Assassin’s Creed
promises to buck this trend.
Why? Well, in Kurzel,
Fassbender and Cotillard, the
film has a trio of talent at its
heart that is nothing short of
stellar. Cotillard is an Oscar
winner (La Vie en Rose),
Fassbender is a two-time
Academy Award nominee
(12 Years a Slave, Steve
Jobs), while Kurzel, as he
proved spectacularly
with Macbeth, isn’t
adverse to taking
major risks (even

when it comes to The Bard).
Intriguingly, the film also
doesn’t follow the plot of
the video game. Rather,
it tells an original story
parallel to the world in
which the game is set.
Instead of bartender
Desmond Miles
then (the
protagonist
in the games),
Fassbender,
who had
never played
or even heard
of Assassin’s
Creed when he
accepted the
role, stars
as convicted

Watch the trailer

criminal Callum Lynch. When
we first meet Callum he is
awaiting execution on Death
Row. After being officially
pronounced dead (following a
lethal injection), he is illegally
revived by scientist Dr. Sophia
Rikkin (Cotillard) and her
team at Abstergo Industries
who subject him to a groundbreaking technology that
unlocks his genetic memories.
With the aid of a
revolutionary machine known
as the ‘Animus’, Callum
experiences the adventures of
his ancestor Aguilar de Nerha,
who was an assassin during
the Spanish Inquisition.
During an on-set interview
with GameSpot, Fassbender