--- title: 'Assassin's Creed' Review: Shirtless Fassbender vs. Knights description: It's fairly innocuous. It's also cheerless and dumb. canonical: https://time.com/4605625/review-assassins-creed-movie/ author: Stephanie Zacharek article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-12-19T17:35:08.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T02:21:13.222Z article:section: Entertainment og:title: Review: It's Fassbender vs. Catholics in 'Assassin's Creed' og:description: But even that isn't enough to make this video game adaptation worth it og:url: https://time.com/4605625/review-assassins-creed-movie/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1ae301207aa0d1c4/6988b36f656a3f0ad4bce328/assassins-creed.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: assassins-creed og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Review: It's Fassbender vs. Catholics in 'Assassin's Creed' twitter:description: But even that isn't enough to make this video game adaptation worth it twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1ae301207aa0d1c4/6988b36f656a3f0ad4bce328/assassins-creed.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Review: It's Shirtless Fassbender vs. Catholics in _Assassin's Creed_ > Sponsored content. 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Terms and conditions apply. * Savings buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Savings Account. * No ATM fees from Ally Bank at Allpoint and Moneypass ATMs plus we reimburse for fees charged by other ATM owners nationwide up to $10 per statement cycle. * Early direct deposit offers eligible direct deposits up to two days sooner. * Spending buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Spending Account.  by [Stephanie Zacharek](https://time.com/author/stephanie-zacharek/)  ## Stephanie Zacharek Film Critic Dec 19, 2016 5:35 PM UTC  20th Century Fox  by [Stephanie Zacharek](https://time.com/author/stephanie-zacharek/)  ## Stephanie Zacharek Film Critic Dec 19, 2016 5:35 PM UTC The true power of the Catholic Church can never be adequately measured. Had Jesus not anointed Peter the first Pope, there would be no Dan Brown novels, no Pedro Almodóvar movies, no tartan mini-skirt school uniforms. And there would be no [_Assassin’s Creed_ video game](http://time.com/4581438/assassins-creed-syndicate-ps4-pro/). No Assassin’s Creed novels. No [_Assassin’s Creed_ movie](http://www.ew.com/article/2016/10/18/assassins-creed-trailer-michael-fassbender). That would mean one less opportunity to see [Michael Fassbender](http://time.com/4468877/alicia-vikander-michael-fassbender-relationship/) shirtless. Our world would be a dark one. _Assassin’s Creed_ the movie is fairly innocuous. It’s also cheerless and dumb. Michael Fassbender stars as Callum Lynch, a death-row criminal who’s executed before our eyes, only to be brought back to life by a beautiful scientist in flawless red lipstick and a nunlike hairdo. That would be Sofia ([Marion Cotillard](http://time.com/4578748/allied-brad-pitt-marion-cotillard-rumors-box-office/)), and she has a special task for Callum, who is descended from Aguilar, one of the bravest members of a line of freedom fighters known as the Assassins. In 15th Century Andalusia, Aguilar and his cohorts devoted their lives to fighting the Knights Templar—Catholic alert!—a hoity-toity religious military order whose goal was to procure the Apple of Eden, a gizmo with the power to deprive man of free will. (Disappointingly, it’s not even a real apple.) Sofia has built an elaborate apparatus that, when hooked into Callum’s spine, allows him to “regress” into the past and become Aguilar. Her goal—and it’s the goal of her father as well, a Templar baddie played by the silky-cool [Jeremy Irons](http://time.com/4574512/bleed-for-this-movie/)—is to use Aguilar to figure out where, exactly, the long-lost Apple of Eden is hiding. When Callum regresses to become Aguilar, there is much fighting with handily concealed knife blades and so forth. The plot of _Assassin’s Creed_ is very confusing. No, scratch that: It’s a mess. You might not really care, but the movie—directed by Justin Kurzel, the Australian director whose last picture was a supergritty version of [_Macbeth_](http://time.com/4018893/macbeth-trailer-marion-cotillard-michael-fassbender/)_,_ also starring Fassbender and Cotillard—is rife with squandered opportunities. At one point, some sort of 15th century enemy Knight scrambles along a rooftop on his horse. This is fascinating: A horse on a rooftop! How did he get there? How did he get down? These are questions the movie never answers. Cool image, though. There are other flaws: When Fassbender as Callum is shirtless, _Assassin’s Creed_ at least nods in the direction of camp juiciness. But in the Aguilar sequences, Fassbender wears a robe of suitably penitential rough cloth, befitting the character’s seriousness of purpose. Yawn. The 15th Century wasn’t a great time to be alive, and it’s not even such nice place to visit. We went all the way back in time with _Assassin’s Creed_ and all we got was this lousy apple. 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