The redundant title (a ninja is an assassin by definition) is clearly meant as a throwback to the dozens of low-budget, Golan-Globus-produced ninja movies that glutted video shelves and late-night cable television schedules in the 1980s, as is the presence of Shô Kosugi. Alas, McTeigue’s Matrix-ish action sequences and CGI-assisted geysers of blood and dismembered limbs lack those films’ simple charms. Its video-game weightlessness keeps the violence from being genuinely visceral, but the film always keeps a straight face just in case. (Hollywood Jewel 16, Waco, TX)