It didn’t look great, but it seemed like it could be a fun movie with an interesting premise where Frankenstein’s Monster is interacting in a more modern society. Though it also reminded me a lot of Underworld which I guess is fine, I enjoy the first Underworld at least as a fun, dumb action movie.
This is basically Underworld but with Frankenstein and somehow even worse. The two-hundred-year war between gargoyles and demons is literally the same exact thing as the vampire and Lycan war from the Underworld movies just replace Kate Beckinsale with Aaron Eckhart.
Many years ago, scientist, Victor Frankenstein has created his greatest creation ever, a monster known as Adam (Aaron Eckhart-The Dark Knight, Thank You For Smoking), but suddenly rejects it, so in an act of revenge the creature murders Victor’s wife and flees. Adam continues to live in a present human world where vigilant gargoyles and menacing demons battle each other for ultimate power.
Soon he finds himself caught in the middle of the war as both groups race to find the secret to Adam’s immortality in a barrage of action sequences and special effects.
Overall, I, Frankenstein has some impressive set pieces Aaron Eckhart gives a fine enough performance despite the lackluster material, but even his presence cannot save this dreary monster of a film that was stitched together. I can tell Eckhart is trying to make this material work and I give him credit for his attempt to bring Frankenstein to life because he’s the only actor in this who actually gives some passion to his performance.
The writing is dreadful to the point of unintentional hilarity and much of acting besides Eckhart has this dry, robotic passionless delivery despite great actors like Bill Nighy and Miranda Otto being in the film, I hope the pay was good at least. Not even some talented actors could save writing consisting of lame exposition and clichéd dialogue.
If they were to throw out the Underworld-like plot and did something fresh and new with the story, it probably would have been considered a decent action fantasy flick. It’s a shame because I saw aspects of an interesting movie here as I wouldn’t mind seeing a movie about the Frankenstein monster in a more modern or futuristic environment and seeing how he’d interact with society. The downside is if a different movie used this kind of premise regardless of how it turns out, people would probably compare it to I, Frankenstein.
The action can sometimes be fun like seeing Aaron Eckhart battle a bunch of CGI gargoyles. Sure, a lot of it looks like a cutscene from a video game and less like a film you paid to see in theaters especially how terrible the CGI looks, but these are pretty much the only times where the movie comes close to being somewhat enjoyable.
This is easily one of the laziest and most soulless attempts at a Frankenstein movie I’ve ever seen and I suggest skipping this entirely and instead just stay at home and watch the original Frankenstein from Universal, the Kenneth Branagh version, or even Tim Burton’s Frankenweenie. Aside from some occasionally fun action and unintentionally silly moments, there is virtually no reason to experience let alone revisit this monster, the smart thing to do is to let this monster die in peace.
