VICTOR FRANKENSTEIN:
UNDENIABLY ENGAGING
LEADS, BUT IT’S NOT ENOUGH TO MAKE THIS MONSTER COME ALIVE!
By Nico Beland
Movie Review: ** out of 4
20TH
CENTURY FOX
Daniel
Radcliffe (left) and James McAvoy (right) as Igor and Victor Frankenstein
Frankenstein
is definitely a character that manages to keep showing up in cinema, from the
classic Universal monster movie to
Kenneth Branagh’s attempt on adapting Mary Shelley’s chilling classic novel,
and even Tim Burton doing his own take on the story in his film, Frankenweenie. Even non-Frankenstein related movies like Marvel’s Hulk movies pay homage to the classic monster and making it their
own, it seems like after several ups and downs, this monster will never truly
die.
In comes this latest re-imagining of
the story, Victor Frankenstein, under
direction by Paul McGuigan (The Acid
House, Gangster No. 1, Push), whom of which is recently known
for directing two episodes of the TV series, Sherlock, and starring James McAvoy (Atonement, X-Men: First Class,
X-Men: Days of Future Past) as the
title character and Daniel Radcliffe (Harry
Potter franchise, December Boys)
as his right-hand hunchback, Igor. When I first saw the trailer for this, I
honestly didn’t know what to think of it, it looked better than I,
Frankenstein, but how could it be on par with the Universal classic or even Tim Burton’s Frankenweenie for that matter.
And once I finally saw it…I was
totally right, not that it was the worst take on Frankenstein (No, that still goes to I, Frankenstein!) but it was surprisingly lacking in monster
terror, creativity, or even a clever take on a story we’ve heard several times
before. I’ll give I, Frankenstein
credit for attempting to do something different from the original Frankenstein story, even though it didn’t
work out very well in the end, but the cast and acting is definitely less
laughably bad than the dialogue from that flick.
The film follows scientist, Victor
Frankenstein (McAvoy) and his equally brilliant partner, Igor (Radcliffe)
sharing one goal after Victor rescued Igor from being treated like a circus
animal…literally, aiding humanity through their groundbreaking research of
immortality. Which leads them to breathe life back into the dead, after
experimenting on a creature hybrid of other organisms’ organs and a chimpanzee
exterior (Came pretty close to beginning a Dawn
of the Dead Planet of the Apes joke) and finally the infamous Frankenstein
monster.
Even after getting into trouble with
the authorities, becoming fugitives from the law, and life or death
experiences, Frankenstein and Igor are determined to complete their goal to use
their scientific theories to make life from death.
Overall, Victor Frankenstein is pretty choppily put together when you really
get down to it, it’s not angrily bad or anything like that, but the film feels
confused on what it’s trying to be, is it trying to be a historical epic or is
is trying to be a monster movie? At least I,
Frankenstein tried to be a supernatural action movie take on the story, but
like I said before, it didn’t work in the end.
What does stand out in the film are
the two leads, James McAvoy and Daniel Radcliffe are both very engaging actors,
McAvoy best known for portraying Young Charles Xavier in the X-Men franchise and Radcliffe obviously
for Harry Potter in the critically and commercially successful Harry Potter film franchise. They both
have decent chemistry together, unfortunately the script doesn’t exploit their
talents, which is a shame because both are incredibly likable actors, hopefully
they’ll do a better movie together in the future because I enjoy seeing both of
them in movies.
Now what really didn’t work in the
film was the design for the actual Frankenstein monster, SPOILER ALERT! It’s a crappy CG lifeless puppet, even Frankenweenie looked more realistic than
he did, and he actually was a puppet. Frankenstein is very underwhelming in
this movie, not to mention he doesn’t get very much screen time in the movie.
If you just want to see James McAvoy
and Daniel Radcliffe together in a movie, you’ll probably find something to
enjoy in Victor Frankenstein, but if
you’re a die-hard fan of other Frankenstein
movies, this one will unintentionally scare you away from it, or make you want
to burn it with fire.
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