Video game adaptations have been going through a little bit of a renaissance recently. Arcane, The Last of Us, the Mario movie, and more have been both critical and commercial hits, and proven that Hollywood might finally have a handle on how to turn video games into movies and TV shows. Its easiest, or at least most obvious, to say this trend started around Detective Pikachu or Sonic the Hedgehog, but the real truth is that the canary in the coal mine was 2016s Assassins Creed (now on Max), a surprisingly good sign that surprisingly great things were on the way. And with a new game in the franchise around the corner, the timing couldnt be better to revisit what is an underrated video game adaptation.The movie follows Cal (Michael Fassbender), a man who is on death row but gets saved by a mysterious organization called Abstergo secretly a front for the Templars of old. The group think his DNA is the key to their plan for world domination, and throw him on a machine called the Animus, which connects Cal to his ancient relative Aguilar de Nerha, a 15th-century warrior who belonged to a secret order of Assassins. In other words, its the exact same plot as just about every Assassins Creed video game thats been released since 2007 (which will be up to 14 main-series video games later this year, if youre keeping track).While the reception to the movie wasnt great upon release, revisiting it in 2025 is a bit of a shock. Director Justin Kurzel (Macbeth, The Order) shoots the movies vision of 15th-century Spain beautifully, with moody shadows that bring out the sparse but gorgeous colors, particularly on the elaborate costumes, which are surprisingly faithful to the Assassin outfits in the games. More importantly, though, is the fact that the movies action looks great. At its best moments, it feels exactly like the Assassins Creed fantasy rendered into live action, with Aguilar encountering burly Templar guards and dispatching them with his hidden blade, then escaping to the rooftops of Madrid for some effortless parkour.The biggest flaw of the movie is that its a narrative nightmare, a fairly common issue with video game adaptations. The clash between the mediums comes mostly because of storytelling space, with games taking up dozens of hours at least, while movies and shows have to squish those overly expansive narratives into neat two- to 10-hour packages. But while earlier attempts often lost their way because they werent faithful to the games they were adapting, Assassins Creeds faults come mostly through its fealty to the earliest games in the series.The first five or so Assassins Creed games, in particular, have ridiculously convoluted narratives. Rather than just being set in their own unique historical setting, the series gives an absurdly complicated modern-day narrative about Assassins, Templars, Abstergo, and some magical/technologically advanced devices, created when the Garden of Eden was built by a forerunner race, to control all human free will. Now, if youve kept up with the franchise, youll know that recently this modern story has taken a pretty significant back seat to the historical action that dominates the series marketing material. The movie, however, went all in.It tries to balance its two storylines carefully, all while opening the door for more movie sequels in the future, tying into the games, and bringing in new fans. Its frankly way too ambitious; the rare video game movie that could have used a little extra shame about the complications of its source material. Ultimately, this results in the movies second half getting mired in modern action thats frankly just not nearly as cool as the historical stuff that came before.But even this narrative quibbling is pretty minor in the grand scheme of the movie. Sure it gets a little lost in the weeds, but like the early Assassins Creed games its emulating, its still a ton of fun. More importantly, like the games, it absolutely nails the historical side of things, not through accuracy, but through the fun of fantasy. The movies version of 15th-century Spain is wonderfully rendered, with excellent costumes, gorgeous sets, and fantastic practical action scenes. Sure, it might be filtered through a convoluted lens, but the Assassins Creed movie is one of the best historical action movies Hollywood has made in years.Despite all of this, Assassins Creed is almost certainly not part of the video game adaptation renaissance. But its still a surprisingly good movie, its still absolutely worth watching, and looking back, its easy to see how it was a sign of great things to come for video game movies and shows.Assassins Creed is now streaming on Max.