Good versus evil, right versus wrong – it’s the eternal moral struggle found in just about every story, irrespective of which medium it’s told on. Finding nuance between those two binary opposites is often what makes said narrative compelling, and that’s something Michael Fassbender touched on while discussing Assassin’s Creed to Empire.
Not only will the Oscar-nominated actor assume the dual role of Callum Lynch/Aguilar, but Fassbender also holds a producer’s role aboard Assassin’s Creed, and previous interviews have revealed his hopes for a future franchise. However, on this occasion, Fassbender’s attention is drawn to the morally complex story of Justin Kurzel’s live-action adaptation.
Orchestrating an age-old battle between the Assassins and the Templars, Kurzel is no stranger to historical epics following his award-winning work on last year’s Macbeth, and it looks as though the filmmaker has really sunk his teeth into dark material with the AC movie.
“It’s not like Star Wars, where you’ve got the light side and the dark side. This is very ambiguous morally. Both of these parties – the Templars and the Assassins – are hypocritical at certain points. There are not clear-cut good and bad charaacters. I think it’s a little more provocative for an audience to see that. You know, ‘Should I be feeling that? Should I be backing this character?’ That’s always fun.”
Set against the Spanish Inquisition, Assassin’s Creed follows Callum as he comes into contact with the Animus, a device capable of unlocking memory blocks belonging to his long-forgotten ancestors. It’s like a time travel device without all the messy paradoxes, and it’ll be fascinating to see how Justin Kurzel’s video game movie fares with audiences in a year that delivered the woeful Angry Birds: The Movie and the more-disappointing-than-woeful Warcraft.
Assassin’s Creed, also starring Marion Cotillard, Ariane Labed, Charlotte Rampling, Matias Varela, Jeremy Irons, Brendan Gleeson and Michael K. Williams, has been pegged for December 21.
