“I’m aware”: Michael Fassbender tried to break a curse and ended up as its latest victim instead
Michael Fassbender has quite the impressive filmography, having divided his time between rather transgressive and intense dramas like playing a sex addict in Shame or a man who begins an affair with his girlfriend’s 15-year-old daughter in Fish Tank, and more conventional parts, such as his role as Magneto in the X-Men franchise.
Whether he’s playing Steve Jobs, Macbeth, Mr Rochester, or Carl Jung, Fassbender never fails to bring an impressive presence to his characters; he is magnetic, unforgettable… With plenty of acclaimed performances under his belt, often made in collaboration with well-respected filmmakers, it seems like Fassbender has a good eye when it comes to selecting fulfilling roles, so where did that sense go when he decided to star in and produce Assassin’s Creed?
Going into this video game adaptation, he knew that the genre was notoriously unsuccessful – just look at Resident Evil. Asked about its tenuous reputation by GQ, Fassbender explained, “I’m aware of that because every single article that’s ever written about us asks, ‘Will Assassin’s Creed be the first successful video game-to-movie?’”
Fassbender’s film used an original story rather than trying to bring the plot of the video game to the big screen, which is something that the actor thought would save the movie from disaster. It didn’t, unfortunately. Directed by Justin Kurzel, the film sees Fassbender play Cal, a character who doesn’t actually appear in the video game.
“We took elements from the video game that are the spine and DNA of what we’re doing. But we really are breaking away from a video-game mould. That’s been a problem with some of the efforts before,” he explained.
Hinging its hopes of success on original elements, the movie tried to break the curse of bad game-to-movie adaptations, but Assassin’s Creed left critics overwhelmingly cold – Fassbender ended up regretting the film, wishing he’d approached it differently… Clearly, video game adaptations are just too complicated to master, and it’s probably best to just leave them as they are, as games.
The project featured some big names, like Charlotte Rampling, Marion Cotillard (whom he previously starred alongside in Macbeth), and Jeremy Irons, but these incredible talents couldn’t save the movie, which was criticised for being just a little bit boring, with too much CGI for its own good.
Reflecting on the project with Movie’n’co., he said, “It wasn’t ideal… I think we missed an opportunity there a little bit. I would make it more entertaining; that’s really the main note. The feeling of the film, I think it took itself too seriously, and I would get to the action a lot quicker. I think there’s three beginnings of the film, which is a mistake.”
At least Fassbender can acknowledge where it went wrong rather than trying to defend a concept that clearly wasn’t going to work. Hopefully, he has learned not to go anywhere near another video game movie, because they seem perpetually cursed to become cinematic slop, no matter how hard a filmmaker tries to make them into something different.
