At the young age of 8, I was introduced to the world of assassins. In November of 2007, Assassin’s Creed was released and my older brother was thrilled to buy it. Although I wasn’t supposed to, I would sneak into my brother’s room and with eager eyes, I would watch him play it. I loved it. I wasn’t able to play until I was a bit older. The first full game I played was Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood when I was 11. From then on, I loved them. When I first heard about the possibility of a movie rendition of the games back in 2013, I was ecstatic. Michael Fassbender was cast as the main character, with Marion Cotillard co-starring. I thought it was foolproof: the movie would be amazing. I would come to find out how wrong my assumptions were.

The action was spectacular. With assassins flipping around and using their hidden weapons left and right, along with the use of point-of-view camerawork, the viewer felt like they were part of the action. The fight scenes looked real and they were just as brutal as any Assassin’s Creed player could want them to be. Where the action impressed and marveled, the storyline needed a lot of work.

The plot, however, was absolutely terrible. Basic rundown? A guy named Callum Lynch (Michael Fassbender) is on death row for murdering a pimp. He’s met his end and is injected with the lethal poison, effectively killing him. Or so we thought. He’s saved by a woman named Sophia Rikkin (Marion Cotillard) and taken to the Abstergo Foundation, which is barely explained. Unless you’ve played the games, you’ll be lost. The rest of the movie is a blur, with confusing transitions and very little explanation throughout.

In the video games, the main rivalry is between the Brotherhood of Assassins and the Templars, who are both fighting for peace. They fight over the possession of the Apple of Eden, which is an artifact that holds the secret to free will. The Templars want to use the Apple to manipulate free will and control everyone in order to force peace. The Assassins want to keep the Apple of Eden from the Templars and allow civilization to find peace with a different method. This is shown in the movie, but it isn’t described well. Once again, unless you have played the game, you wouldn’t understand this from simply watching the movie.

The story also moves incredibly fast. It took the film just under two hours to tell a story that was told in the timespan of five separate, 10 hour long video games. Thankfully, the movie-makers didn’t try to bring any of the characters from the games onto the big screen. Instead, they invented new characters with a different story. Nevertheless, the story was cut short and was not fully explored, making it boring and not at all relatable. The characters were not fully developed, and when lives were in danger, I didn’t find myself feeling any fear or worry for them, as I do with most other movies.

Overall, the only emotion I truly felt while watching Assassin’s Creed was disappointment. I was so excited to have my childhood dreams made into reality with the silver screen, just to have those dreams crushed. The wonderful action and the strong cast were not enough to save a movie that was destroyed by its story. I hope the sequel (which has already been green-lit by the production companies) reinvents the series in a way that doesn’t disappoint its audiences.