Welcome to The Mundane Adventures of a Fangirl

I consider myself a Fangirl. What does that mean, you ask? A "fanboy" in the most common understanding is a hardcore fan of 'genre' based entertainment in particular. In my case - science-fiction and comic book based movies and television. Because I'm a chick - it's fangirl, not fanboy. There you have it! I am a big movie fan, however, not necessarily a 'film' fan. And now - I have the forum to present my opinions to the public! These will mainly be movie reviews -that will always be my opinion - repeat OPINION. Just what I think, and in no way do I present my opinion as fact. I hope you enjoy and maybe it will help you decide what to see at the movie theater this weekend!

Tuesday, January 24, 2017

Movie Review: Florence Foster Jenkins (PG13 – 111 minutes)



Narcissa Florence Foster was born July 19, 1868.  She was a talented pianist when she was young, and when her father refused to allow her to study music in Europe after graduating high school, she eloped with Dr. Frank Thornton Jenkins in 1885.  After learning she contracted syphilis from her husband, she ended the relationship and apparently never spoke of him again.  An eventual arm injury prevented the piano playing, so she gave piano lessons to support herself.  After her father died, she inherited a great deal of money, and resumed a musical career while taking up with a British Shakespearean actor named St. Clair Bayfield.  She became a big time socialite back when that was a thing you could be with the right amount of money and shifted to Florence Foster Jenkins, noted as the ‘world’s worst opera singer’, which did nothing to dissway her love of performing.  She became a bit of a musical cult figure in New York City during the 1920s, 30s, and 40s.  Many celebrities of the time were fans, despite her being widely mocked for her flamboyant costumes and terrible singing voice, as they were won over by her overwhelming passion for performing and music. She became the founder and ‘President Soprano Hostess’ for the Verdi Club – her own organization. The question of whether she was in on the joke or if she genuinely believed she had musical talent is still up for debate.  It’s also possible that both the syphilis and the treatment may have damaged her hearing, and contributed to the issue.

This movie tells a piece of Florence’s story, starting after she has already taken up with Bayfield, hires a new pianist, and decides to perform at Carnegie Hall.  After hiring McMoon to play for her while she takes singing lessons, Florence is listening to the radio, hearing how women are sending dedications to soldiers in WWI, and decides to record an album so that the profits can go to soldiers and their families.  

The recording inexplicably sells very well, so she decides to put on a huge concert.  At first, she is nearly laughed off the stage, but fans of hers push for her to continue, and eventually she finishes the concert.  Bayfield and McMoon (the pianist) attempt to prevent her from seeing any of the reviews (that they had not already bribed) to the point of purchasing all the newspapers.  Eventually, she does read one review, and appears to pass out from the shock of it, fading right into her death.

The movie is directed by Stephen Frears who also directed Hi Fidelity, The Queen and Philomena.  I will say that this movie felt very much like The Queen and Philomena in that it has a really strong female true-life character lead, and tells a tight little story pulled from a more epic life. 
  • Meryl Streep plays Florence Foster Jenkins – and while this is a story about a real woman, it also feels a bit like a Streep showcase. I could have just as easily believed it to be fiction, created to show off Streep’s skills.  There’s no argument that she is fantastic, and makes Florence easy to love because of her overwhelming kindness. And yes, she did her own singing, because she's Meryl Frickin' Streep.  

  • Hugh Grant plays St. Clair Bayfield.  He came out of semi-retirement to do this movie, mainly for the chance to work with Streep. He seems to genuinely love Florence, even though he has a girlfriend on the side. He does everything he can to help her along with her career – even to the point of bribing critics and stacking the audience with friends and family to cheer on Florence.

  • Simon Helberg plays Cosme McMoon – the new pianist hired by Florence to play with her at Carnegie Hall.  At first, he’s excited by the possibility, but then, realizing how terrible her singing is – he becomes terrified of performing with her.  As the story continues, and he gets to know her, he becomes a big fan, and is very happy to perform with her.  Helberg does a wonderful job in this, and it’s so much more than you’ve ever gotten to see him do on Big Bang Theory.

  • Rebecca Ferguson plays Kathleen, Bayfield’s side-lady.  She’s in love with him, as he clearly is with her, and in the beginning she is supportive of both he and Florence, but grows increasingly frustrated as he spends more and more time with Florence instead of her.


That’s pretty much it for the main cast. Really, this is a tight, small, movie covering just a small portion of Florence’s life and career, just before her death.  It’s absolutely a Streep vehicle, but both Grant and Helberg are fantastic supporting characters. Having not known anything about Florence, this was interesting for me, and hilarious from time to time. Honestly, it really showed that if you are genuine and kind, and do what you can to help others, people will be drawn to you and support you – even if you are the worst singer ever!  I love a positive awards-season movie!

6 out of 10, definitely Oscar Bait –but you can’t argue with Streep’s talent.
Cast Interviews: 



Wednesday, January 18, 2017

Movie Review: Sleepless (R – 95 minutes)


Sleepless is a new action thriller that is based on a French movie, Sleepless Night (Nuit Blanche 2011), which was directed by Frederic Jardin.  

The story is essentially the same in this remake. The movie opens with an action-packed heist. Two masked men are holding up a van. They steal a bag from the van, but not before the driver calls for backup – and the backup sees one of the masked men’s faces. After a shootout, the two get away, and the next morning, we learn that the men who stole the bag are cops, partners in fact, and Vincent, the one whose face was seen, offers that they pick up the case for investigation. Unfortunately for Vincent and his partner, Sean, I.A. officer Jennifer Bryant is also on the case.  She’s trying to bust up a large section of dirty cops in this particular Vegas precinct.

As Vincent drives over to the hospital where his ex-wife works to pick up his son and give us some character background, we learn that Dena, his ex, is about to get married to her new boyfriend, and that Vincent has been lousy about being available for his son, Thomas.  Vincent is taking Thomas to his game (honestly, we never learn what sport – so it could be anything – LaCrosse, Hockey, Water Polo, etc), he gets stopped on the road, stabbed, and the bad guys steal Thomas right out of the car.  He then gets a call – it’s from Stanley Rubino, the owner/operator of the fictional Vegas casino/hotel, Luxxus.  Well, Stanley is all upset because that giant back of cocaine that Vincent and Sean stole was on its way to Novak, a member of a big time crime family.

Novak is busy shooting baseballs at and then cutting out the tongue of his cousin, really just as character establishment, when he decides to head over to Stanley to collect the giant bag of drugs, which he has promised to his father to send to their distributors in Canada, which they badly need, because they just recently lost a shipment. It’s a little complicated.

In any case, Stanley tells Vincent to bring him the drugs if he wants to get his son back, Novak tells Stanley to get him the drugs if he wants to keep his tongue, and Jennifer is tailing Vincent very closely, making it difficult for him to get the drugs from Sean to hand over to Stanley in exchange for Thomas.  All this sets up for a very intense evening of chases, fist fights, and gunfire, during which we learn who was really the dirty cop, who was really undercover, and where exactly the drugs end up.

Having never seen the original, I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this movie going in to it.  I was expecting perhaps a light action with some comedy bits.  It is not that – it is absolutely a very gritty tense little thriller that is very fast paced and very R rated.  Eventually, it all sort of works out okay, but it does take a while to get there.  This is the first American movie by Swiss director Baran Bo Odar, and I really enjoyed the speed of it.  Because it all takes place in one night, you really feel a bit worn out by the end. 
  • This is definitely a Jamie Foxx movie, as he plays Vincent, and carries the majority of the film. He is very good, and you do feel for him as he goes from determined and angry to panicked and desperate as the night goes on.

  • Gabrielle Union plays Dena, and really doesn’t get much to do aside from yell at Vincent for disappointing her and Thomas.

  • Octavius J. Johnson plays Thomas, and does a pretty god job of being kidnapped, beaten up a bit – angry at his dad, and then trying to help his dad escape.  I was mystified that he had a ‘game’ to get to, which was mentioned over and over again, but I don’t recall them ever mentioning the sport at all.  He had a huge bag, but we never saw what equipment was in it.

  • Dermot Mulroney plays Stanley, and it was fun to see him as a slimy villain when lately he’s been all nice and helpful on Pure Genius. Unfortunately for him, I will always thing of him as Dirty Steve from Young Guns.

  • Scoot McNairy plays Novak in a role that once again had me thinking, “That looks like Scoot McNairy, but I’m not sure”, which is what I think almost every time I see him.  He was downright frightening in this, creepy and nasty.

  • Tip T.I. Harris plays Sean Cass, Vincent’s partner, and there’s not nearly as much of him in the movie as I was expecting. He’s there at the beginning, and shows up to give the drugs back to Vincent, then shows up just at the end to bring him a uniform.  He’s just fine, but again, super Atlanta, and sometimes a little tough to understand.

  • Michelle Monaghan plays Jennifer Bryant, and she gets her own character development when we learn that she recently was beat up on the job, and is trying to get past it, even though everyone keeps asking her how she’s doing. She’s been working on bringing down this particular group of dirty cops for a long time, so she’s willing to break a couple of rules to get there.  I thought she was very good in this, desperately determined.

  • David Harbour plays Bryant’s I.A. partner Dennison who keeps trying to get her to stop overworking herself and maybe take a day or two off.


Overall, I enjoyed it, even though it was different than I was expecting. It’s short, fast, and intense – and worth renting for sure, maybe not seeing in the theater.

6 out of 10.  Gained points for Scoot McNairy still being hard for me to pick out.  Is he disappearing into the role, or is he just that generic looking?
Cast Interviews:





Thursday, January 12, 2017

Movie Review: Underworld Blood Wars (R – 91 minutes)

You may not believe it, but this is the fifth movie in the Underworld Series. 

In 2003, Director Len Wiseman teamed up with stuntman/microbiologist Kevin Grevioux to come up with a vampire/werewolf story basing the transformations on viruses in the blood.  In the story, way back in the day, there was one guy (Alexander Corvinus) who had two sons, one bitten by a bat (Marcus), and one bitten by a wolf (William), and their descendants carried the diseases and spread them, leading to a huge amount of vampires and werewolves (Lycans).

In the first movie, Underworld – we are introduced to Selene – she’s a “death dealer”, a warrior in a vampire clan who hunts Lycans, which is a job she loves.  The movie was a bit of a surprise, and could have been a B movie throw-away (and some might say it is), but I loved it.  The Lycan effects are all mostly practical, with some really amazing prosthetics.  The story is simple – Selene is perfectly happy killing Lycans, having been told by her adopted vampire ‘father’ Victor that they killed her family.  The vampires have decided to extend the power of their ruling family by having three elders, and having two of them in vampire-style comas while one of them is awake.  Amelia is awake, with Victor and Marcus asleep.  Spoiler alert – Selene learns that the Lycans are actually victims in the scenario, and that Victor killed her family.   Lucian, the head of the Lycans, is working on mounting a revenge mission against Victor – since he had once enslaved the Lycans, and killed Lucian’s love – Victor’s own daughter Sonja - because she dared get pregnant with a hybrid baby!  Selene encounters Michael Corvin, who the Lycans are hunting because he’s a direct descendant of the ‘Corvinus’ line and his blood will help them get stronger and win the ‘war’. 

Underworld Evolution was released in 2006, and deals with the repercussions of Selene and Michael starting up a relationship, her killing Victor, and Amelia being killed by the Lycans, but only because they were given instructions by Kraven – a vampire attempting a coup.    Only Marcus is left, and he gets woken up and is very angry about things in general. He’s also mostly bat – again, with some amazing bat prosthetics.  Michael is getting better about controlling his half vampire/half Lycan transformation, and so the two of them end up actually finding the original Corvinus (played by Derek Jacobi if you can believe that!), and attempting to evade both Lycans and vampires.

The third movie in the series is Underworld: Rise of the Lycans from 2009.  Chronologically, this one is actually first as this is the flashback movie that tells the story of Lucian’s birth, capture, romance with Sonja, and then leading a Lycan uprising once Sonja gets murdered by her father.  Honestly, this one is probably my favorite.  It has the medieval setting, and more Bill Nighy, Michael Sheen, and Kevin Grevioux himself as Raze.  It may be an excuse for these fairly big time actors to get more time to play some fun roles after they were all killed in the first movie. 

The fourth movie, Underworld Awakenings,  brings back Selene, waking up after being captured by humans who have finally become aware that this vampire/werewolf war is going on.  Michael is missing and so is their hybrid child – which she didn’t know she had!  Selene teams up with Michael Ealy to help track down her daughter, who of course some Lycans are after – to use her blood to create super Lycans – while also getting help from vampire David, but not his angry vampire father, Thomas.

That brings us up to date, and to Underworld Blood Wars.  Selene is on the run.  Her clan is gone – and since she loved being a death dealer so much, she’s really not sure what to do. Her daughter is in hiding, and even Selene doesn’t know where she is.  David is following her around, because she saved his life last movie.  Meanwhile, a new leader, Marius, has taken over the Lycans – and he’s organizing them like they’ve never been organized before!

Semira, a vampire with some aspirations to rule, has pushed her way onto the council of the Eastern clan.  She and her henchman/cunnilingus provider, Varga, have invited Thomas to the mansion/castle they all live in to ask him to get David to get Selene to come in and train the new group of death dealers to prepare for this incoming wave of Lycans.  Varga’s not all that thrilled about that idea, since he thinks he can train them just fine.  David communicates this to Selene, and since she’s got nothing better to do, she heads to the home of the Eastern clan – a huge castle-like mansion which is filled with vampires that only wear black.

Upon arrival, Selene agrees to help Cassius, Semira, and the other council members.  She begins training the death dealers, but is swiftly betrayed by Semira – who is apparently still holding a grudge about her killing Victor – even though that was like four movies ago.  

Well, Semira has Varga kill the death-dealer recruits so they can blame Selene and the council will want to kill her.  Semira attempts to drain her blood, since it’s really powerful.  David and Thomas bust in to save her, and Thomas sacrifices himself so that they can get away.

Thomas told them to go north to hide, to a Scandinavian clan of Vampires who pretty much stay out of everyone else’s affairs.  Selene and David arrive at their castle on a mountain while Alexia – an up and coming death dealer in the Eastern Clan – is secretly meeting with Marius to give him all the details of what Semira is up to.  The amount of double crosses in this movie is really tough to keep up with.  Selene and David find that this northern clan has all the white vampire clothes, which must be why the Easter clan dresses all in black.  Lena, one of these northern vampires, has some weird teleport-y type powers based on the water? I’m not entirely sure how that works.  They also have been holding on to a drop of Amelia’s blood that she left for David (did I not mention that the vampires can see other’s memories by tasting their blood?), because as it turns out – she was his mother, so he’s of the royal line or whatever.

Alexia definitely led the Lycans to the castle, and they attack – wiping out a lot of the white-wearing vampires.  Meanwhile, Selene and Marius fight on the ice outside, and we get the idea that he’s maybe been dosing himself with something, because he’s bigger and stronger than most Lycans and able to get into Lycan form, with a regular Marius head, which is very unsettling.  With Alexia’s help, Marius is able to beat Selene pretty badly, and she seems to die and slide under the ice. Alexia tastes Selene’s blood, and realizes she was telling the truth about not knowing where her daughter, Eve, is. They decide to go attack the Eastern clan.

David heads back down, proves to the council that he’s Amelia’s son and Semira is actually the bad guy. The council locks her up instead of killing her, and David gets everyone ready just as Marius and crew attack.  There’s a pretty bloody battle, and things are going badly for the vampires since the Lycans brought a cannon-type deal that is punching holes in the wall and letting the sunlight in.  Just as things start looking hopeless, Selene comes back with the newly gained teleport-y type powers, some new white-blond highlights in her hair, a brand new white coat, and all the battle-prepped white vampires from the north as backup. She corners Marius and rips out his spine, but not before learning his special powers are because he captured and killed her love, Michael.

The story ends with David and Selene in line to become the new vampire elders along with Lena as Selene has visions of Eve.  Len Wiseman has already confirmed there will be a sixth and final movie – so I would assume the last movie will be Selene hunting for Eve and then finally ending the war?

This one is directed by Anna Foerster, who has directed episodes of Outlander, Madame Secretary, and Criminal Minds.  She started her career as a director of photography for Roland Emmerich, and there are definitely some sweeping large shots that have an Emmerich-type feel in this movie. I will say that it was really heavy on exposition, vampire family drama, and double crosses.  There were also a lot of characters to keep straight, some new and some old.  It felt a bit choppy throughout, jumping from scene to scene really quickly.  All that considered, I still really enjoyed it, but I’m partial to these movies. I love when everyone in it seems to be having a really good time doing something silly.

  • Kate Beckinsale is back as Selene in her black leather to hunt Lycans.  She has said how much she loves doing these movies, playing a bad-ass werewolf hunter.  She’s perfectly capable, and hey – if I looked that good in a leather jumpsuit, I would wear it all the time.

  • Theo James returns as David, doing his very best to assist Selene while dealing with the revelation about his mother.

  • Tobias Menzies plays Marius. He’s definitely a guy you recognize from Outlander, Game of Thrones, and The Night Manager. I first noticed him in Rome.  Here, he does a good job of being an obsessed Lycan who finally gets all these werewolves together with a goal, but really, the werewolf body with his head was weird.

  • Lara Pulver plays Semira, and I recognized her most from Sherlock, where she played Irene Adler.  She’s just the right touch of vampy evil in this. Her costumes do half the work, but she sasses through the movie.   

  • Charles Dance plays Thomas for a little while, until he sacrifices himself to let David and Selene escape. He’s elegant and always has a touch of evil around him, but he’s pretty fun in this. Again – the wardrobe does half his work.

  • James Faulkner plays vampire council member Cassius, and his job is really just to be gloomy and glowery until David shows up to prove he’s royalty.

  • Peter Andersson plays Vidar – the head vampire of the northern clan who has a whole bunch of pertinent exposition secrets on hand for a guy we are just learning exists five movies in.
  • Clementine Nicholson plays Lena – and while I may not understand how the whole water-burial-gives-me-teleporty-powers thing works, she’s very interesting and has a great outfit – very Viking.

  • Bradley James plays Varga, and his main job is to hang around and roll his eyes.  He was a bit of a tool until he betrayed Semira at the end and tried to help David.

  • Daisy Head plays Alexia, and her double cross was so unexpected to me since we had already had a double cross.  I’m also not sure it did her any good, since letting the Lycans into the Eastern Clan’s castle really wiped everybody out.


Overall, it was not great, but I really enjoyed it. Funny how that can work sometimes!  The werewolves are less practical then they used to be, but they still look pretty good. The vampires are still really goth, hanging out in their castles and believing that they are better than everybody else around them.  I’m really looking forward to the next one, can’t wait to see what Eve has been up to and who has been double-crossing her.

6 out of 10 – gained points for the introduction of a new vampire clan. Lost points because they still refuse to wear any color.  Here’s hoping the next movie introduces a clan of vampires that wear all the colors.

Cast Interviews; 
Bonus - Cinema Sins - Everything wrong with Underworld...but be sure to watch all of them, I'm only putting one here.

Wednesday, January 4, 2017

Movie Review: Assassin’s Creed (PG13 – 115 minutes)


Assassin’s Creed began as a video game series from Ubisoft that debuted in 2007.  The first one is set during the third Crusade in the Holy Land in 1191.  The Secret Order of Assassins – which are based on the Hashshashin sect (you can Wikipedia them for more details – they have a long history) – is battling the Templar Knights (they also have a long history that you can Wikipedia).  The quickest way to sum up their beef is that the Assassins fight for peace through free will, while the Templars want peace through control.

When playing the game, you play as Desmond Miles. In present day, Desmond gets kidnapped by Abstergo Industries and forced into their ‘Animus’, a machine that lets you relive the lives of your ancestors – essentially allowing them to monitor your genetic memories.  Desmond’s ancestor, Altair Ibn-La’Ahad was a senior member of the Assassins.  He had ruined a mission to retrieve an artifact from Robert de Sable, so throughout the course of the game, Altair has to redeem himself by taking on various assassinations, gradually earning back his gear in the process, (“Here’s your wrist blade”, “Now you’ve earned back your sword”, etc.).  The reason Abstergo is after these memories through Desmond is to find the “Apple of Eden”, a relic that may possess god-like powers.  Eventually (spoiler alert) you find out that Abstergo is the Templars, which then rolls into the second game as Desmond is rescued and goes into another animus to his ancestor Ezio Auditore da Firenze during the Italian renaissance.  I actually successfully played the first game all the way through the end, and started the second one (which is my favorite), but am currently stuck in a church in Venice. I struggle with the running along the walls part.  I am currently playing the one set in France (Unity) – I honestly forget what number they are on!

Since the game is essentially playing a guy who is visiting his ancestor’s memories through a machine, I figured if they ever turned it into a movie, they would probably drop the memory part to focus on the parkour-loving assassins.  However, this movie sticks pretty close to the gameplay. 
The movie follows Callum Lynch, who we meet in 1986 as a bit of a daredevil, jumping his bicycle off a roof.  He comes home to find his father standing over his dead mother with a knife, telling him that ‘they’ have found them, and Cal needs to run.  We then meet up with Cal thirty years later as he’s about to be executed in a Texas prison for killing a pimp who tried to mug him.  Strangely, he wakes up after his execution to find that he’s been taken by the Abstergo Foundation to their facility in Madrid.  Dr. Sophia Rikkin, their head scientist (her father Alan is in charge of the foundation), puts him in the animus, to get his genetic memories of his ancestor Aguilar de Nerha.

Aguilar and his partner Maria were rescuing Prince Ahmed de Grandad – the son of the Sultan Muhammad XII.  Templars kidnapped the boy to get the sultan to reveal where the Apple of Eden is hidden. 

Outside the animus, Cal starts to befriend some of the other inmates in the facility – who all seem to be assassin descendants that Abstergo is using to find the Apple.  However, some of them seem to still be ‘on the clock’ so to speak and know a lot more about what is going on than Cal.  He seems pretty shocked by the whole thing.  After all, they’ve been working as assassins, and Cal would have been, had he not spent the last 30 years away from his parent’s assassin upbringing.

Eventually, Alan reveals that Cal’s father is there at the facility – hoping that Cal will kill him and join their side because after all, he has a board to report to and he’s promised them the Apple.  However, Cal’s father reveals that he and Cal’s mother were both assassins, and he killed her to prevent Abstergo from putting her in the animus.  Swayed, Cal follows through Aguilar’s memories, and learns that Aguilar and Maria basically failed in their mission, but that Aguilar did get the Apple, and gave it to someone, who then hid it – however, the Rikkins do get this information and grab the Apple to take to the board.  

But, by this point, Cal has come to realize who he is, and has helped free all the other assassin descendants in the facility – a few of them head to the Templar gathering to steal back the Apple, and begin a new war with the Templars.

Since my favorite part of the games is the look and the lush open world environments where the play takes place – I was hoping to see that in the movie, and it did deliver on that.  Here the memories take place in Spain during the time of the inquisition (1492), between the events of the first and second game.  Directed by Australian Justin Kurzel, the movie blends the current and flashback portions quite well.  It starts with an intense action sequence, then goes through a ton of exposition, but definitely builds to a great climax.  The last half hour or so was great, and I was on the edge of my seat.  They did a great job of translating the complicated nature of the genetic memory action of the game to a movie, but I’m not sure it will read for those who are unfamiliar with the game. It could get confusing. The action was great, the parkour was good, however, since it is such a key part of the game, I did want a little more of it.  Parkour (or free-running) is amazing to watch, so I wanted it shot from farther away and with fewer cuts so that you could see the work the stuntmen were doing.   I was pleasantly surprised with the cast.
  • I was not sure how Michael Fassbender would do with this movie, I don’t really think of him as an action guy – despite the bit in 300.  However, he pulled off Cal’s disbelief early on, and then his progression towards believer as the story progressed.  In terms of the Aguilar memories, he barely looks like himself, so those were pretty great too. 

  • Marion Cotillard plays Dr. Sofia Rikkin, and she did a good job in convincing Cal to help her get what she wants. She at first seemed that she might side with the Assassin’s, but then, just at the end, it seems pretty clear that she’s going to become a big time Templar and really start hunting them down.

  • Jeremy Irons plays Alan Rikkin, who basically is all about the Apple all the time.  He wants the Templars to keep giving him money, so he’s willing to go to almost any lengths.  Including showing Cal a knife, handing it to him, and then pulling it away just as he’s reaching for it to set it on a table in front of him. Really?

  • Brendan Gleeson has basically a one-scene cameo as Cal’s father (and yes, that is his son Brian Gleeson playing him in the 1986 scene).  He provides the final push for Cal to forgive him and realize his assassin potential.
  • Charlotte Rampling plays head Templar (Queen Templar?) Ellen Kaye.  In this, she’s just the pure embodiment of evil – there’s not a ton for her to do aside from walk around and look derisively at everyone else, which she does very well.

  • Michael K. Williams plays Moussa, whose ancestor was an assassin named Baptiste.  He realizes pretty quickly what Abstergo is trying to do with Cal, and starts putting things in motion to assist with the big escape and uprising.

  • Ariane Labed plays Maria, Aguilar’s assassin partner.  She’s pretty great and gets a ton of impressive action sequences.

  • Callum Turner plays Nathan, another imprisoned assassin descendant who gets lippy with Cal about the Apple pretty quickly, even before Cal has any idea what is going on.

Overall, I really enjoyed the movie – far more than I expected to.  The action was spectacular, and the back and forth between present day and memory was done pretty well.  I really enjoyed the build to the end, and potential sequels – and I will say that I do hope they get a sequel, because I want more from Cal and Moussa out on assassination patrol to protect/destroy the apple.
8 out of 10 – gained points for Michael K. Williams begin awesome. Lost points for Jeremy Irons setting the knife on the table after teasing that he was going to hand it over.


Bonus – cast interviews


Bonus – Assassin’s Creed Fan Made Parkour!