Welcome to The Morning After, where I share with you what movies I’ve seen over the past week. Below, you will find short reviews of those movies along with a star rating. Full length reviews may come at a later date.

So, here is what I watched this past week (or prior since I apparently missed a couple in all the hubbub):

The Lobster

Being single in the future might not be as simple as it sounds. The Lobster envisions a pseudo-futuristic society where being single requires you to enter a facility for fellow singles, find love within fortyfive days or be turned into animals. The title originates as the form that Colin Farrell’s David would like to take should he fail. With his dog brother in tow, David attempts to navigate the rigors of love with people who, through various flaws, may be unlovable, including himself.

Director Yorgos Lanthimos wrote the screenplay with Efthymis Filippou and it’s unlike anything most mainstream audiences have ever seen. The absurdity of the events in the film underlie a tense cultural imperative evident in modern society where those who are single are somehow seen as incomplete. Those who cannot find love either become animals or flee and become hunted like them. Farrell has been quite active in recent years, but this may be his most commanding performance yet, approaching his pinnacle in 2008’s In Bruges.

Co-star Rachel Weisz narrates this surrealist fantasy that would have been quite at home during the French New Wave. Clearly influenced by Jean Luc Godard and others, Lanthimos has crafted a most fascinating treatise that will certainly confound those looking for an obvious conclusion. It’s such a bizarre little film that one can’t help but fall for its errant charms.

The Little Prince

An elderly aviator (voice of Jeff Bridges) attempts to connect with the young girl who moves in next door (Mackenzie Foy) as she struggles with the rigorous life her mother (Rachel McAdams) has set out for her in order to get into the snooty private school that could help her succeed later in life.

Employing traditional computer animation for much of the film, The Little Prince comes alive during the fantasy world scenes that The Aviator narratively describes to the girl. These scenes are crafted using a different visual style, making them look like creations made entirely of paper, perfect and crumpled. These magical sequences are solid, but the surrounding story doesn’t compare favorably.

The vocal work is decent, but not that exciting. The likes of Bridges, McAdams, James Franco, Bud Cort, Benicio Del Toro, Albert Brooks, and Paul Rudd don’t seem nearly as invested in the effort as they should be. The lone exceptions are Foy and Ricky Gervais. This fantasy environment plays well to Gervais’ comedic strengths as well as his character’s. Foy, on the other hand, is a charming presence, elevating those scenes as best as they can be.

Finding the emotional relevance in the film is a challenge as its moral is obvious and its finale throws into question all that precedes it and not in an introspective or pensive way. This is a film that strives to be art, but struggles mightily getting there.

Assassin’s Creed

What is it about video game adaptations that make them so hard to execute. Is it a slavish devotion to the source material, a desire to throw in too many references that only fans will get, or is it a lack of strong directors picking up the mantles and driving the films in the direction they need to go rather than the direction they should go.

At its heart, Assassin’s Creed wants to be something more. Although it features a number of references that the game franchise’s fans will appreciate, it crafts a brand new narrative not previously seen in the games, set in 1492 Spain. Michael Fassbender, Marion Cotillard, and Jeremy Irons invest themselves well in their characters, but they are so paper thin that their motives seem out of touch. This is the second time Irons has turned up in an unfortunate performance in an unfortunate gaming-genre film (the first was Dungeons & Dragons).

Trying to fit your narrative into an existing world, while also trying to be inventive and original carries with it some serious issues. The plot to Assassin’s Creed seems simplistic and quite cheesy, though it isn’t uncharacteristic of the video game world, which is far more expansive and detailed. The production values are utterly disappointing. Some of the effects used for the Animus sequences are nifty, but they are overused.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, the scenes set in Spain are grimy and poorly lit. While it may be an attempt at historical accuracy not making them more crisp and color-rich defeats the purpose of setting the video game in a historical context. Half the fun of playing the game is taking into the environment around you, the sets and costumes that you might not be entirely familiar with. Since the near-future world that’s at the core of the story is dully and plain, it would be imperative to make the past more evocative or compelling to compensate. Having an undercooked visual supported by an undercooked plot makes for an undercooked experience.