Assassin's Creed

Video game movies get a bit of bad wrap. It is incredibly hard to capture the essence of what makes the medium great (the active participation) and transfer that to cinema (a passive experience). When I first heard about this movie based on a semi-historical game series, and how it would take place in the world of the games, not just follow the story, I was hopeful. But once again, there is a failure to realise what makes this particular game series so popular.

Callum Lynch (Michael Fassbender) is a troubled man. He saw his mother be murdered by his father in Mexico and, after a life of crime, finds himself being executed for murder. After 'dying', he is subsequently revived by a shadowy organisation called Abstergo, who are doing experiments with genetic memories (the idea that the memories of our ancestors are locked in our very DNA). Abstergo has tracked Callum's DNA back to the Spanish Inquisition, where his ancestor Aguilar (also Fassbender) was a member of an ancient order called the Assassins. Sophia Rikkin (Marion Cotillard) is in charge of the experiments and puts Callum inside an 'Animus', a device that allows users to relive the memories mentioned before as though they were really there. It turns out though, Abstergo is really a front for a group called the Templars, the historic enemy of the Assassins.

This movie is complete chaos. The only reason I was able to write half of that plot outline was because I have played the games. The story is a real confusing mess, as the audience is thrust into the film with a tiny little historical background to the two warring factions and their goals, but none of the technology that dominates the film. And that leads to one of the big problems of the film. The games on which it is based are split between a modern and historical storyline. This is not an even split however, as the majority of the time is spent in that historical setting (be it the Crusades or Colonial America), with the development of the modern storyline and characters taking a back seat (granted these add up over the span of five games and isn't something you do with a movie). But for this, there is an attempt at an even balance, although it tips toward the modern setting, with the only reason I can see being that it would be harder to make a historical action movie. Now I will say one thing I really appreciated about the sequences set during the Spanish Inquisition, is that they went all in and had everyone speaking Spanish. Too often Hollywood movies would just go for the easy English option.

Up top, I should say that the action is very nicely choreographed and the stunt performers worked extremely well. The only problem was that you couldn't see it. Now, the Jason Bourne series is known for very rapid handheld 'shakycam' shots that a lot of people don't like. It's a different stage of the movie making process that's at fault here though. This time it's the editing. Some of the action shots were so quick I couldn't keep up. At one stage a bad guy had a horse on a roof and I didn't even know how he even got there. It's no secret that Michael Fassbender doesn't like doing press interviews or promotional work for his films, but I've never seen him look so bored while in a film. In a lot of the scenes he has a rather pained look on his face as though he has no idea what's going on and I can't really fault him for that. Marion Cotillard looked equally confused, but probably at the fact that her role was so underwritten. The remaining veteran actors in the cast (Jeremy Irons, Brendan Gleeson and Charlotte Rampling) are wasted as background filler and I had no idea what Michael K. Williams was doing in the plot at all.

This movie will turn you off if you're a hardcore fan or someone just wandering in from the street. I know it might be easy to point a finger at me and say that I overanalyse movies, but I truly came at this one wanting it to be good. Sadly, it missed out on being a solid action movie, despite the high amount of action.

Triple 9

Aussie director John Hillcoat is no stranger to making brutally violent films. Triple 9 is no exception to this rule, showing the brutal lengths that people will go to when their backs are against the wall. While it is an enjoyable heist movie, it can at times seem a bit predictable and some of the character motivations aren't even evident.

In Atlanta, a small crew of criminals led by Michael Atwood (Chiwetel Ejiofor) are made to pull a heist on a bank by Russian mobster Irina Vlaslov (Kate Winslet). Among the crew are two corrupt cops, Marcus Belmont (Anthony Mackie) and Franco Rodriguez (Clifton Collins Jr), as well as brothers Russell (Norman Reedus) and Gabe (Aaron Paul). Despite the fact that they pulled off the heist without a hitch, the crew are forced to pull another with even higher stakes. To help avoid police attention, they come up with a scheme to murder a police officer, which they know the cops will have a higher priority to get to. They decide upon Chris (Casey Affleck), Marcus' new partner. Meanwhile, Chris' uncle Jeffrey (Woody Harrelson) is investigating the crew.

Triple 9 ends up being a very generic heist movie. It does have some surprises, but it turns out to be very predictable. As you watch it, you can pick out who will turn on who and which characters will end up dying. I suppose that that is one thing where John Hillcoat makes a tiny bit of a difference. Life in this movie is cheap, people die when you think for sure that they are the main character. Maybe that stems from packing the movie with so many big name actors. I felt as though they were all important because of the star power that they brought to the movie. Turns out, they aren't.

Another problem that arises from stacking a movie like this with stars is that no one stands out in any way. Actors like Teresa Palmer, Gal Gadot, Norman Reedus and Michael K. Williams were only cast so that their names could be put on the poster so that people would go see the film. Casey Affleck, who ends up becoming the main character only appears after twenty minutes into the action. Clifton Collins Jr. is the only actor to give a truly good performance as the surprising second villain only due to the fact that he has no star power and has to work to be noticed. Kate Winslet is also good, but only when you compare how different her role here compared to Rose in Titanic is.

All in all Triple 9 is a movie that you're going to watch for the action over the story. It has surprisingly little heart. If anything you're not going to ever want to go to Atlanta.

Mark Reviews: The Gambler

Hey guys, I'm back. And this time I was in a serious movie because a lot of you guys have been running around saying I'm not a serious actor. But you know what? I am. And you can count your lucky stars that I'm here today to explain it to you, because you probably won't get my ambition of being in a movie like this.

This time around, I play another character which I'm not at all. An English professor. And you better believe that I do it well, because I'm the greatest actor to have ever lived. So what, my character has a gambling problem, you're probably at home watching too much porn.

And because I'm bad at Blackjack in real life, I'm not good in it in this movie. But I make it seem convincing that I know what I'm doing. But still, I end up owing money to Michael K. Williams and some Korean guy.

Even when pissing in public, I'm a better actor than you

You probably already know this, but I don't like working with other people, mainly because I have to carry the film. But I have to say, Brie Larson is a dream. If I wasn't already married with 15 kids, I'd definitely get in there. Not because she's beautiful, but because she's an amazing actress. And when I say in the film that she's a genius, I meant Brie herself and not the character she played. Oh yeah, John Goodman was good too, but hey, I've worked with Burt Reynolds, so what you gonna do.

So I can hear you all saying, "Hey Mark, isn't this a remake of the Jimmy Caan 1978 film?", well let me tell you something, this ain't the first time I've been in a remake before. You may remember I was in a remake of the 1968 film Planet of the Apes and I made that character my own instead of just doing a Charlton Heston impression. See I bet you didn't expect to come and read me doing a pretty good self evaluation of my own performance. You don't need to go Harvard or MIT to get a education these days.

My recommendation for if you are going to see this movie, don't take your brother Donnie because the smarts are just going to go over his head and Ma don't want him gambling no more.

Kill The Messenger

Movies about journalists stumbling onto conspiracies involving the government come along far too long for my liking. And when you watch them, they always seem over the top, filled with action sequences and other things that never happened to the real people. Kill The Messenger, however, doesn't rely on these theatrics to get people engaged. It uses a gripping true story that is hard to comes to terms with because the real world implications are terrifying.

Gary Webb (Jeremy Renner) is a journalist who works for the San Jose Mercury News. He finds out about a conspiracy that involves the CIA wilfully letting drug dealers sell crack cocaine in South Central Los Angeles in order to fund a revolution in Nicaragua that it backs. Webb writes an explosive three-part story that gets everyone riled up. He then has to deal with people attacking his ethics and whether or not the story is true.

This movie takes an interesting approach to the way the history is shown. While the story of Webb and his investigation goes on, the film sometimes cuts away to media footage from the time as well as film taken of the actors as though they were in the 90s. Although this is a fun technique, I found at times that it was slightly distracting.

Jeremy Renner dominates this movie. I know that he is the star, but there is never a scene where he isn't there. I feel that with a movie like this there should be at least one or two scenes where we don't need to see the lead actor. Mary Winstead is amazing as Gary's editor who really wants him to succeed, but feels pressure from her bosses.

Apart from these two actors, everyone else features intermittently or dropped a couple of scenes after they have served their purpose. Barry Pepper, Michael Sheen and Michael K. Williams are all fantastic actors who appear for a scene or two, but their characters are underdeveloped, especially Williams, who plays drug dealer "Freeway" Rick Ross, a man who probably deserves a movie to be made about his own life.

Verdict: A decent movie that tells a part of history that everybody would already know about, hopefully. Not essential watching.