The movie opens with a scene in 1492 of Michael Fassbender taking the Assassin's creed in the midst of an Assassin's den. This scene is offered with exactly zero context.
Then there's a jarring shift to 1983, where we see a small child trying to jump a roof on a bicycle somewhere in Mexico. He fails and crashes his bike before riding home. When he gets there, he walks in to see his mother, stabbed to death, and an Assassin standing by with blood dripping from his blade. This Assassin is revealed to be his father, who tells him to run when Jeremy Irons drives up with a bunch of fellas who are fairly well-armed.
We then jarringly jump to the present day where we see Michael Fassbender on Death Row for an unspecified murder. A priest comes in to give him Last Rites, and he flippantly denies them. As he's about to die by lethal injection, he makes an apology for the, again, unspecified murder.
After he 'dies,' Fassbender wakes up disoriented in a bland medical facility. He is greeted by Marion Cotillard, who explains how she faked his death, and reveals he's in a facility run by a company called Abstergo. He tries to run away, only to discover that the after-effects of the drug that simulated his death include a convenient inablilty to run. As he crawls through the facility, he discovers the Animus, which is a giant claw arm in this film.
As he regains his bearings and the use of his limbs, he comes to terms with his situation. Marion Cotillard explains that she and Abstergo are searching for an Artifact that can help 'cure the disease of violence' in the world. Fassbender's ancestor is the last known possessor of this Macguffin.
She then shows him to the cafeteria, where he discovers that there are lots of Assassins being held here, who are also all in the cafeteria. Omar from The Wire is also an Assassin, and greets Fassbender as he sits with his food. He gives Fassbender an apple, and cautions him to be careful. Another Assassin walks over, and threatens Fassbender to not help Abstergo. Keep in mind, Fassbender still isn't quite sure just what the fuck is happening around there.
The next day, Fassbender is taken to the Animus, where the mechanics of it are explained to him. The arm jiggles the user about as if it were shaking him like a Polaroid picture, and the surrounding projectors display the scenery of the flashback visually for the benefit of those in the present. As he's hooked in, the machine boots up, and he's transported back to 1492.
Once there, the Assassin's Guild explains the primary conflict in the 1492 timeline: the Templars, who haven't really been discussed up to now, are trying to find the Apple of Eden, an Artifact that will somehow allow them to bring the world to heel and destroy all free will. The Apple is currently being held by the Sultan of Somesuch or Other, so the Templars are trying to kidnap the Sultan's kid. The Assassins are trying to stop this.
In the present, Jeremy Irons meets with the Templar Queen, who tells him that she's authoring a vote to shut down the Animus project at the Annual Templar Meeting Bonanza and Jamboree in three days. He promises results by then.
Back in the past, the kid is being held in a village, and the Templars have found out where that is. The Assassins draw up a plan to stop them, and Fassbender makes eyes at a Lady Assassin with lots of facial tattoos. As the Templars ride in, so do the Assassins. They somehow covertly approach the hut where the kid resides in broad daylight, and make their move. Also for some reason one of the Templar Knights looks exactly like the Head of Security in the present-day Abstergo facility.
The Templars load the kid in to a steel prison wagon, and then Lady Face Tattoo Assassin steals the wagon. She drives off, and the Templars give chase, with Fassbender chasing them. The remaining Assassins also give chase, and several of them die. This is odd, since in the video game series, the death of Assassins are a rare occurrence.
The Templars, Fassbender and the Boys all catch up to the wagon at once, and more Assassins are killed. The wagon and the remaining Assassins are then captured.
After some boring exposition, the Assassins are trussed up in front of a large crowd in a courtyard and prepped for burning at the stake. A Templar priest gives a rabble-rousing speech, and then two Assassins are lit like Roman Candles. Fassbender and Lady Face Tattoos escape, and the Animus session ends right before Pastbender takes a Leap of Faith.
Back in the present, Presentbender learns more about his heritage, and that Marion Cotillard is Jeremy Irons' daughter. She tells him his dad is also a 'resident' at the facility, and they share a moment because both their moms were killed my Assassins. She hands him a knife and tells him to go work out his daddy issues.
Fassbender confronts his dad, revealed to be played by Brendan Gleeson. Gleedad tells Presentbender that he killed his mom because Abstergo found them in Mexico in the 80's, and she decided to die rather than be subjected to the Animus. Gleedad intended to kill Kidbender at the same time, but he couldn't bring himself to. Presentbender wishes him dead, but refuses to kill him.
Presentbender is shadowboxing in his room when Marion comes to get him for his next Animus session. They have another moment, and then he breaks in to an out-of-key, shouted-at-the-top-of-his lungs version of Patsy Cline's Crazy, because that was his mom's favorite song.
Pastbender awakens to witness the Templar priest yelling at the gate of the Sultan, and holding his kid at knifepoint. He explains to the Sultan that the only way Sultan gets his kid back is if he gives up the Apple. The Sultan caves, and the Templar priest and a coven of guards, including Security Knight Lookalike, enter the Sultan's compound. Pastbender and Lady Face Tats sneak in to the compound and, as the Sultan is about to hand over the Apple (before oddly disappearing for the rest of the scene), kill all the Templars except for the Priest and Security Knight.
As Pastbender duels Security Knight, the Priest sneaks up on Lady Face Tats and gets the drop on her. He holds her at knifepoint, demanding Pastbender's surrender. As Pastbender is about to cave, Lady Face Tats imposes herself on the Priest's knife to keep him from doing so. Pastbender then kills Security Knight but fails to kill the Priest. However, he does make off with the Apple and segues in to another Ancient Parkour scene. To finalize his escape, he performs a Leap of Faith, breaking the Animus' claw-arm in the present. On a personal note, I find it odd that Abstergo wouldn't build the Animus to be able to handle a Leap, as it is demonstrated that they know extensively about it. Somehow, even though the Animus arm is broken, the projectors show that the flashback hasn't ended. Pastbender hands the Apple off to Christopher Columbus and tells him to carry it to his grave.
From this throwaway line, everyone in the movie surmises that the Apple was literally buried with Columbus, and has moved with his body the half-dozen times he's been moved about since. Jeremy Irons decides that they don't really need the Assassins anymore, and issues an extermination order. The Assassins fight back and put in to motion their apparent standing plan to escape.
Most of the Assassins die, including Gleedad. Presentbender is told he has absorbed the fighting knowledge of his ancestor, and promptly demonstrates this fact. He climbs the Animus claw, and makes his way to the Helipad Made Explicitly For Dramatic Escapes, which is located on top of the glass dome that houses the Animus arm and is also 50 feet tall. Omar From The Wire and the Asian Gal from Die Hard: The Shitty One survive too, and the three of them make their way to the Annual Templar Meeting Bonanza and Jamboree, where Jeremy Irons and Queen Templar are about to reveal the Apple of Eden to the Templar Assembly. I guess they found it offscreen, and nobody thought to show the audience.
As Presentbender sneaks in, he runs in to Marion Cotillard, who tells him that she has become disillusioned with using the Apple to steal the world's free will, and hopes he stops her dad. Then Presentbender kills Jeremy Irons and makes off with the Apple. Marion Cotillard swears revenge, blatantly ignoring the fact that she allowed and condoned Presentbender's actions ten minutes ago. Mercifully, the film ends there.
Pretty much everyone in this film acted like they didn't want to be there, especially Marion Cotillard, who did her best Kristen Stewart impersonation for the entirety of the film, never really emoting at all. Michael Fassbender never really seemed to settle on a method to playing his character, aimlessly swinging between manic, depressed and determined at random times.
I really feel like they tried to cram way too much in to this film. It took five video games to get to the Apple of Eden. They sped right to it in this one film, and didn't really explain a damn thing on the way. They just expected the audience to accept everything without explanation or any meaningful exposition. No real emotional connection was formed among any of the characters, and there wasn't any character development past basic leveling up.
For a movie based on a video game franchise with such rich mythology, this was a really shallow film. It felt like they weren't counting on making a franchise of this.
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