Tag: Marion Cottilard

Film Review: Assassin’s Creed

The long wait for a good video game adaptation continues.

Atop a perch, the assassins wait to figure out what the heck is happening.

Callum Lynch sits in the mess hall of a secret lab, having just been ported into the memories of a master assassin, his ancestor. He holds an apple firmly in his hand and says, “what the fuck is happening?” Mr. Lynch, you took the words right out of my mouth! His question is one I felt throughout at least 4/5 of the new adaptation of the popular Ubisoft video game series, Assassin’s Creed. There has never been a good video game adaptation (see the list here for proof). There have been entertaining tries and near misses, like the Resident Evil series and Prince of Persia, and there have been lousy ones that have aged into cult classics, like Super Mario Bros. and Street Fighter. There has yet to be a universally respected video game adaptation — a film that both audiences and critics enjoy. Some thought the drought would end with Prince of Persia. Nope! Some thought it would be Assassin’s Creed. Nope! The wait continues. Maybe it’ll be the new Tomb Raider film, ’cause it ain’t gonna be the Rampage film, and likely not the final Resident Evil installment. Nevertheless, Assassin’s Creed is a total mess, lacking a coherent story, engaging characters, and even the visuals are disappointing, which is a bummer coming from such a beautifully cinematic game series.

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Film Review: Allied

Polished, pulpy WWII tale how they used to make’em, for better or worse.

Brad and Marion play the WWII spy game.
Brad and Marion play the WWII spy game.

Like reading a dime novel from off the shelf of your local supermarket, Allied supplies a quick dose of melodrama, suspense, humor, and twists. It’s similarly digested easy, immediately emotional, and just as quickly forgotten. Director Robert Zemeckis has delivered his fair share of sensationalism, from Romancing the Stone to Forrest Gump to The Walk, and many memorable films in between (trust me, you’ve seen a lot of them). My semi-belabored point is, Zemeckis is no stranger to managing exaggerated storylines and overly dramatic plots. In Allied, he sets each scene like a stage play, without any noticeable complexity or vagueness. The complexity is left up to the characters. Yes it may be subtle, but while creating a blatant sense of the time period, the old school art direction also compliments the twists at the heart of the story — after all, this is an elaborate spy game. Pitt and Cotillard bring their serviceable ‘B’ game (not their best work but far from their worst), inflicting just enough charm and charisma into the plot to carry the somewhat nonsensical and ultimately forgettable story forward. 

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