What I Like/Dislike about Assassin's Creed

Assassin's Creed is the best video game film adaptation ever made, which isn't saying anything. Video game adaptations has been going through a very bad streak of mediocre productions throughout the years. (No, Resident Evil is absolute shit! It has nothing to do with the games except the names.) With Assassin's Creed, everyone was riding on hope that it would break the curse of bad film adaptations down the years, the casting was some of the best of the year (Michael Fassbender, Marion Cotillard, Jeremy Irons lead the star-studded film), but despite the actors' best efforts, the movie still suffered.

However, even the worst of the worst films have its moments. There are always some positives here and there in Assassin's Creed, but it never came into full package. As a big fan of the video games, I would like to offer what went wrong with the film, and what went right.

What I Like

Assassin's Creed Lore
With the movie came from inputs of the developers themselves, the thing that got it right is the universe itself. The feel of the secret war of the Templars and Assassins, the leap of faith, hidden blade, Abstergo, costumes and many more are on point in this film. The period of 1400s during the Spanish Inquisition was probably the best part of the film, the colour palette was right, the setting was immersive. It makes me want to experience the Spanish Inquisition.

Stunt Works
The stunt works in the film is great, you can see obviously the choreographers put up great effort to make sure the parkour, leap of faith and the fight scenes are very well planned. It feels like the video games where the player is doing all the actions of the main character, but at a much frantic pace than the game, which is a good thing.

What I Didn't Like

Too Much Modern Day Jargon
Ask any Assassin's Creed fan on what's their favourite aspects of the game series, 90% of them would say visiting the history with unique characters interacting with key historical figures. Producers of this film must be thinking, let's go learn about the present day story more. That's the part of the game where players are itching to go back to the past! Yes, the modern day sci-fi setting is worth exploring, but not 70% of the whole damn movie! The audiences don't need to be constantly reminded by Dr. Sofia Rikkin about finding the Apple of Eden and Modern Templar Order wanting to find it.

Underdeveloped, or Never-Developed Characters
The game universe has featured some great characters, Ezio Auditore, Desmond Miles, Lucy Stillman, Altair, Edward Kenway, Leonardo Da Vinci. However, the film has no good characters, almost all of the characters are basically single-layered, which is kinda sad really when you have talents of Michael Fassbender, Marion Cottilard, Jeremy Irons leading the faces of the movie. They are some of the great actors of modern cinema, but somehow their talents are underused in this movie. Not to mention the ancient Assassin Maria, barely spoke and the audience hardly knew her, kinda amazed that Ubisoft actually bothers to give her a name even though she hardly featured.

Supplement to the Games Formula
As this movie is set in the Assassin's Creed games universe, so this obviously meant that the audiences need to understand the whole Assassins vs Templars war. However, it is poorly executed, some of the details left some audiences in my theatre gasping "Why the hell did they do this or that?!" the whole freaking time, even though me and my friends, who played the games, have no problems with the understanding of the movie. Then, there are moments where some of the characters giving pointless full exposition of their motivations and characters regarding some of the film plot. This makes the movie unsurprising and lack of any good mysteries to explore.

I am a huge fan of Assassin's Creed, I have played almost every single Assassin's Creed games released on consoles thus far. I enjoyed moments from the movie, but as the whole package it falls apart. I was hoping Assassin's Creed would give video game franchises a proper respect. I mean, Assassin's Creed has such a big potential for film adaptation, good premise, interesting characters and good twist to human history for the audience, yet it still doesn't hold up. The film itself certainly has the recipe right, but it did not mix them well. I'm pretty sure there are some ways video game adaptation could work. I guess The Last of Us and Uncharted are the next beacon of hope.

Review: Need For Speed (film)

Trailers ended, the lights started to dim, Touchstone Pictures & Dreamworks Studios logo going through they standard splash screen. Then, some chuckles in the cinema (myself included) when EA logo appeared, probably because it is unusual to see it in theatres, and it feels like we are booting up a video game.

Introducing, HOWARD STARK!

This is normal as the movie I'm talking about is Need For Speed, a loose movie adaptation of the video game of the same name. At first glance, it feels like a Fast & Furious wannabe, fast cars, good looking dudes and babes and racing set pieces, but that's where the similarity ends.

Wait, I'm not coming with you? WHAT??!!

The movie features a bare bone storyline and backstory of characters, which is disappointing because of the loose adaptation of this vast franchise. The writers could almost write anything, but instead they make it feel like it was written in a matter of hours while distracted by some other stuffs. Some unneeded plot twist here and there, it feels like a total mess.

This can be a very good fitting for Caption Contest

Aaron Paul (Tobey Marshall) and Michael Keaton (Monarch) could only done so much because of  the bad script, they are the characters worth exploring, and while not as good, Imogen Poots (Julia) also felt limited. Other characters, well, they felt flat all the way that we could even see the whole movie without noticing them.

Burn Baby! BURN!!!

But luckily, the action sequences shine when they mattered the most in the movie like this. Director Scott Waugh clearly knows how to handle the actions stuff well, as I love the action sequences in Act of Valor (he directed) as well. He chose the use of first person view of the racing sequence, which I really like it as it added the thrill into the movie. Final race sequence, the first race and swerving around Detroit are particularly exciting. Some of the action sequences felt better because there's no music interrupting the action, which is sometimes essential for racing sequences.

Look ma!

What I'm really so impressed about the movie is the low to no usage of CGI in the movie, so the end result is it felt realistic. This also meant that a lot of the stunt driving by the actors and stunt drivers are actually real, which is really impressive as most of the actors nowadays rely on green screen or body double.

Played too much Burnout perhaps?

As a car nut, watching the movie first time around, I noticed a few errors that really caught my eyes. The Bugatti Veyron Super Sport (which I think it is) was not particularly well replicated, the Lamborghini Sesto Elemento features a freaking power window and  the McLaren P1 doesn't raise its spoiler at high speed. With EA and its partners involved, I'm pretty sure they can at least have a look at some of these issues before they get the green light eh?

All and all, Need For Speed is a good, entertaining, adrenaline pumping popcorn movie. Its action sequences managed to overcome its dreadful story, but only just. More work is needed if they want a sequel.

Pros: Well-made action sequences, audio effects, realistic driving is a big welcome
Cons: Abysmal storyline, some sketchy dialogue, worrying looking replicas

Score: 3/5

Opinion: Why I'm Holding off Buying a PS4 (For Now)

PS4 is here in Malaysia, and many other countries, right now. It's definitely one of the gadgets I'm having in my wishlist. It packs a 8-core AMD Jaguar architecture CPU, Radeon GPU, 8GB of RAM, 500GB HDD, secondary processor to handle background and OS tasks. So, it's a ridiculously more beefy specs over the PS3, which definitely need to be, considering the PS3 is on its 7th year.

I'm certain that PS4 is my next console instead of the Xbox One, as my gaming habit and collections are built around the PlayStation, I'm not willing to start all over on the Xbox. But I'm not buying a PS4, at least within the first year, as I considered certain things I believe it's not worth it right now.

Malaysian PS4 is expensive

Economically speaking, this is the killer blow, Malaysian PS4 are ridiculously priced at launch. The US is retailed around $299 (RM1,200++) and Hong Kong is around the RM1,300++ range. However in Malaysia, PS4 is priced at a whopping RM1,799 for standalone and RM1,899 for the bundle! This makes the local PS4 not worth it, even with the beefy specs. I would hope that I can ask my relative who travel to other countries frequently to help me to look out for it, or wait for the local price drop.

Hardware Issues could be around

As a frequent gadgets follower, I know that a lot of tech gadgets suffer from hardware issues earlier in their life cycle, game consoles are no different. PS2 suffered from disc reading errors, Xbox 360 suffers from the infamous Red Ring of Death until the Xbox 360 S revision and PS3 also has a poor and half-baked software and OS earlier in the life cycle. There are some reports of PS4 not starting up properly and loose HDMI port while Xbox One suffers from discs reading issues as well. So advice is, if you're not eager to put your money on PS4 early, it's better you wait.

Launch Games are not that great

Killzone Shadow Fall, NBA 2K14, Battlefield 4 and Resogun looks and plays like a next-gen game, but the rest, CoD, Need For Speed Rivals, InJustice, Assassin's Creed Black Flag feel more like a port from PS3. And with games like inFamous Second Son, Watch_Dogs, DriveClub and many other good games are not coming to PS4 until sometime in 2014, holding off buying a PS4 until more great games comes along is a no-brainer.