Assassin's Creed
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation | Release Date: December 21, 2016 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
36
METASCORE
Generally unfavorable reviews based on 38 Critic Reviews
Positive:
4
Mixed:
16
Negative:
18
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
68
The VergeAdi RobertsonDec 19, 2016
Assassin’s Creed’s creators have the courage to always take themselves seriously, even when they’re working with material that sounds fundamentally silly. There’s no great leap of faith in Assassin’s Creed, but a surprising amount of the time, it at least finds steady footing. Read full review
67
IndieWireDavid EhrlichDec 19, 2016
Declaring Assassin’s Creed to be the best video game movie ever made is the kind of backhanded compliment that sounds like hyperbole, but the description fits the bill on both counts. Regardless of what you call this peculiar, arrestingly uninviting nonsense, the fact of the matter is that it’s the only blockbuster of 2016 that left me desperate for a sequel. Read full review
63
Rolling StonePeter TraversDec 21, 2016
By showing signs of intelligent life in a universe of diseased, digital drivel, Assassin's Creed stands above the herd of movies based on video games by default. Read full review
63
Philadelphia InquirerTirdad DerakhshaniDec 21, 2016
It also has great momentum, good set pieces, and so much frothy nihilism it’s just plain fun. Read full review
60
Los Angeles TimesKatie WalshDec 20, 2016
Assassin's Creed will be polarizing, but it's fascinating as an entry in Kurzel's oeuvre. It is singularly his film — both in style and the obsession with hubris, power and violence. Read full review
60
EmpireJames DyerDec 20, 2016
The frenetic action is Assassin’s Creed’s saving grace. Inventively choreographed and beautifully executed, its game-inspired brand of wushu-meets-parkour delivers some genuinely awe-inducing feats. Read full review
60
ScreenCrushMatt SingerDec 19, 2016
Assassin’s Creed makes you actively work for its pleasures, and it’s heartening to see a film of this scale that’s strange and ambitious and doesn’t spoon-feed viewers every little detail. Read full review
60
Time Out LondonDave CalhounDec 19, 2016
The relentless gloom can feel oppressive, but there’s plenty of ambition here, especially in the layered storytelling and woozy sense of time and place, with plenty of soaring aerial shots that nod quietly to the all-seeing eye of a computer game. Read full review
60
Total FilmJames MottramDec 19, 2016
Valiant, but flawed. Some of the set-pieces are superb, but there isn’t enough meat on the bones to turn this into a classic. Read full review
50
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliDec 22, 2016
Obtuse, narratively incoherent, and ultimately frustrating, it stands as another example of how hard it is to make a good mainstream movie out of a popular computer game. Read full review
50
Boston GlobeMark FeeneyDec 21, 2016
The effect is less video-game-turned-movie than zombie movie minus zombies: stilted, static, s-l-o-o-o-w. The ending couldn’t set up a sequel more clearly if “To be continued” appeared on a title card. Don’t count on it. Game on? Game over. Read full review
50
The Seattle TimesSoren AndersenDec 21, 2016
The picture has an undeniable rough stylishness...but in terms of coherence of storytelling it leaves the audience choking on all that swirling dust. Read full review
50
ConsequenceRandall ColburnDec 21, 2016
What saves this head-scratching, relentlessly portentous movie is what also saves the games: the action is on point. Read full review
50
Washington PostMichael O'SullivanDec 20, 2016
It’s incrementally more fun than it is silly. Read full review
50
Screen DailyTim GriersonDec 19, 2016
Assassin’s Creed is nearly wall-to-wall violence, but Kurzel reveals an eye for widescreen composition that, paired with Christopher Tellefsen’s efficient, hyperactive editing, gives the film the tenor of a sophisticated graphic novel. Read full review
50
The Film StageJordan RaupDec 19, 2016
Assassin’s Creed bears a jumbled narrative and self-serious approach that ends up feeling far too assaultive on the senses without any genuine pay-off. Read full review
42
The A.V. ClubJesse HassengerDec 19, 2016
The movie is at least interestingly confusing until about the halfway mark, when monotony sets in for good. Read full review
42
The PlaylistKenji FujishimaDec 19, 2016
It’s all window-dressing for an ending that reveals this alternately goofy and self-serious big-budget Hollywood product to be little more than a two-hour prelude to a potential future franchise. Read full review
40
The TelegraphRobbie CollinDec 19, 2016
Assassin’s Creed is leaps and bounds ahead of kitchen-sink-hurling flapdoodle like X-Men Apocalypse – it’s only the second-worst Fassbender star vehicle of 2016 – but it never allows him a sober moment, as that film did in a hushed Polish forest, where his talent, as opposed to his biceps, gets a stern workout. Read full review
40
VarietyOwen GleibermanDec 19, 2016
In Assassin’s Creed, Michael Fassbender is like the ultimate special effect. Just by showing up, he confers respectability on two hours of semi-coherent overly art-directed video-game sludge. Read full review
38
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzDec 21, 2016
Never before have such acting heavyweights been so misused on screen. Read full review
38
RogerEbert.comSimon AbramsDec 21, 2016
Unlike the actual video game, Assassin's Creed isn't ridiculous and fun, but rather ridiculous and turgid. Read full review
38
Movie NationRoger MooreDec 20, 2016
Quest or no quest, cool locations or green screen soundstages, shirtless Fassbender or Fassbender in an assassin’s hoodie, “Assassin’s” never breaks the creed of Hollywood filmed video games — “Action packed, but dull.” Read full review
30
We Got This CoveredRobert Yaniz Jr.Dec 21, 2016
Any fans hoping that Assassin's Creed would break the long streak of poor video game adaptations are bound to be disappointed by this nearly incomprehensible mess. Read full review
30
Arizona RepublicBarbara VanDenburghDec 21, 2016
Another entry in a long line of good video games adapted into terrible movies, Assassin’s Creed is ragingly stupid. That its incoherent plotline is treated with the utmost reverence by skilled thespians only brings its idiocy into sharper relief. Read full review
30
The New York TimesGlenn KennyDec 20, 2016
For an ostensible action movie, the cast spends an awful lot of time standing around and looking lost. I can only guess that they were following their director’s lead. Read full review
30
New York Daily NewsEdward DouglasDec 19, 2016
The acting offers little relief. Fassbender gives a super serious performance in a movie that needed his natural sense of humor. Playing his Abstergo doctor, Cotillard's accent is so bizarre and disconcerting, it's impossible to believe she’s the same actress who’s been so amazing in everything else she's done. As for Jeremy Irons, who plays her scientist father, it's hard to imagine this is anything more than a payday. Read full review
30
The Hollywood ReporterHarry WindsorDec 19, 2016
Assassin’s Creed is resolutely stone-faced, ditching the humdrum quips that are par for the course in today's blockbusters. But this is almost two hours of convoluted hokum that might have benefited from a few self-deflating jabs. Read full review
30
Village VoiceAlan ScherstuhlDec 19, 2016
The Assassin's Creed movie is about all the parts you might skip in the games. Read full review
30
TheWrapMichael NordineDec 19, 2016
The plot is that most dreadful of mixes: both laughably silly and needlessly complicated. Read full review
30
TimeStephanie ZacharekDec 19, 2016
Assassin’s Creed the movie is fairly innocuous. It’s also cheerless and dumb. Read full review
25
Entertainment WeeklyDarren FranichDec 21, 2016
Here’s a film that turns Michael Fassbender into a puppet, and oh, those strings hold him down. Read full review
25
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsDec 21, 2016
It's just a mediocre action movie, poorly edited and larded with a terrible musical score, based on a video game. Nothing new there. Read full review
25
New York PostSara StewartDec 20, 2016
As might be obvious, I’m not a gamer, so perhaps all of this will be thrilling for fans who’ve played it. The rest of us, I imagine, may come out of this film invigorated with a creed of our own: Avoid movies based on video games. Read full review
20
Austin ChronicleJosh KupeckiDec 21, 2016
Assassin’s Creed is a dour, lifeless film that leaves those familiar with the material perplexed, and those ignorant of it downright clueless. Read full review
20
The GuardianPeter BradshawDec 19, 2016
It’s rare to see a film quite so lacking in animus. It exists only to gouge money out of gamers. They might well want to stick to the game. Read full review
12
Slant MagazineAaron RiccioDec 19, 2016
The film ends up with both blurry action that often looks digitally faked and a fractious plot that’s stuck over-explaining itself. Read full review
10
SlateJonathan L. FischerDec 22, 2016
I suppose you could say the film made me slightly more likely to play one of the games, but only because I’d do just about anything before I saw this movie again. Read full review
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