“Assassin’s Creed” is a movie I am surprisingly willing to watch, unless someone tells me that it is one of the worst movies they saw after it is released. Even then, I would still be inclined to watch it.

The world premiere trailer for “Assassin’s Creed” was released a few weeks ago on “Jimmy Kimmel Live” and is set to release Dec. 21, 2016. The movie follows the story Callum Lynch, a character that is actually unseen in any of the games. Furthermore, the story itself is unrelated to any actual Assassin’s Creed game, but is set between the first and second game.

Both of these are extremely well played moves by the director, as it most of the concept the same while allowing for a new story with plot twists that can keep fans and non-players excited alike. The movie itself also starts with a surprise, as shown by the trailer. The main character is supposed to be dead and executed, but is now helping the assassins overthrow the templars by learning the skills of his past ancestor.

At the same time, nearly no movie based solely on a video game has ever released and done well, and for good reason. Not only are people who do not play those video games generally unwilling to watch those movies, the people who do play the video game are so concerned with the fact that it is not 100% accurate towards the video game, that they will simply refuse to watch it.

There is quite a substantial list of these games. Movies based on extremely popular games or including extremely popular video games like Pixels, Dead or Alive or the Mortal Kombat movies.

A video game movie is most likely to do best if it has the elements for a game and includes references that people will understand, while only loosely tying the story of the game, or presenting the game in a new light, such as Wreck-It Ralph.

The premise behind Assassin’s Creed is that descendants of famous assassins are able to connect to their ancestor using the Animus, a machine utilized by both templars, the bad guys, and the assassins. Using this machine, people are able to retain the skills and knowledge of the ancestors before them and fight off each other.

However, the movie changes it a little. Instead of the character being strapped to a chair, the character is lifted with a crane looking mechanical arm, that allows the user to be suspended in mid-air while moving around which is how they learn their skills. Furthermore, for some apparent reason, the main character has the need to equip a hidden blade on at all times, even when he’s just using the machine.

The movie is attempting to use this to make the actions outside of the Animus seem more compelling, as if you die in the Animus, nothing technically happens. Since there needs to be conflict, the movie itself most likely contains much more confrontations with the templars, as there are many shots of them entering the building where the assassins are hiding.

Overall, I think this part of the movie will appeal more to people who don’t play the game as it makes it seem more interesting, but personally, as someone who played almost all of the Assassin’s Creed game, I disagree with the idea of making the Animus seem so much more complicated. The society in the game is so much more advanced than ours, while also being extremely simple with their designs.

Another mistake the director made was casting the same actor for the character outside and inside the Animus. Although the character outside of the game is living as the character inside the game, their physical appearances should be different, as the character inside the game is his ancestor, and is Spanish.

On that note, the screenwriters have decided to set the movie during the Spanish Inquisition, which is both good and bad. On one hand, as stated previously, the events are not put in any other game and are therefore a new idea. However, the other games were set in such unique times.

Assassin’s Creed was placed during the Crusades, the second game was placed during the Renaissance where there are beautiful buildings you can just jump off and the third game was placed during the American Revolution. All three of these are very memorable historic time.

The Spanish Inquisition is a Catholic religious group. Although the games mostly revolve around problems with religious leaders, such as the Pope, putting the movie in such a time, makes the central conflict much harder to find and understand, and it would be better if it could be set in a time of war or new creation.

However, with all their decisions, I think the Assassin’s Creed movie is setting itself up in the right direction for success, and can succeed, if it manages to avoid the failures of many past video game movies in the past.

by BENJAMIN KIM