Frankenstein Review

It's pronounced 'Fronkensteen.

Guillermo del Toro has returned to his well of affection for sympathetic, misunderstood creatures, only to deliver a lackluster gothic horror that adds little to the original tale. GDL’s Frankenstein may be an authentic retelling of Mary Shelley’s original novel, but the characters here lack depth and nuance. We may have GDL’s pristine costumes and production design that are in a class of their own, but the digital wide look to every shot makes me think of Wicked (2024), and I don’t love that. This becomes even more of a shame when our central tragic figure, played by Jacob Elordi, is fantastic even with the thin material he’s been given. I am also perplexed by the pacing of this film, as I often find myself begging for something interesting to happen. By the end, I should have just watched his more focused gothic horror classic, Crimson Peak.

Frankenstein tells the story of Victor Frankenstein (Oscar Isaac), who is taken aboard a ship in the Arctic after being seemingly attacked by a monster. He then tells the story of the monster he’s created to the ship captain, going back to his youth, where he’s damaged from the early death of his mother and the abuse faced by his father. Victor becomes obsessed with researching how to defeat death. After being kicked out of the Royal College of Surgeons for bringing a corpse back to life, a rich arms dealer named Henrich Harlander (Christoph Waltz) decides to back his research financially. Harlander is also the uncle of Lady Elizabeth Harlander (Mia Goth), who’s set to wed Victor’s brother William (Felix Kammerer). Victor begins taking as many dead people as he can and starts constructing his body, which he will bring back to life, but he also falls in love with his brother’s wife. One stormy night, the conditions are perfect, and Victor performs his experiment, bringing to life The Creature (Jacob Elordi). The Creature bongs, and Elizabeth throws Victor into a rage, where he wants to destroy his creation. He sets fire to his laboratory, and The Creature escapes to discover a life of its own and seek revenge on its creator.

There is a lot to love about Frankenstein, even if it landed flat. For starters, the costume and production design are stellar as always. Mia Goth’s dresses, the coffins, the laboratories, and all the wonderful bloody body parts and veins bleeding about are great stuff! Visually breathtaking moments, such as any of the Angel of Death sequences or the bringing of The Creature to life, reminded my heart of why I love the whimsical magic that only GDL can deliver on the big screen. Victor’s mother on the steps, her dress flying in the wind, or the creature longingly watching a leaf escape down the drain invoke glowing moments of cinematic wonder and joy in me. This becomes a massive disappointment when the visual language is hindered by these unappealing digital wide shots and the overuse of CGI in the film, which makes the production design and characters appear muddy, preventing them from shining as they should. It makes everyone so static and unalive (haha). I wasn’t very fond of The Creature’s design either; this sleek, soft boy reminded me of one of the engineers from the Prometheus movies, and it just didn’t cut it. I like my Frankenstein wide and big. Some shoulder presses or dumbbell lateral raises should have been included in the rotation.

My gripes with the creature design are voided because, if there’s any pulse within this movie, it’s with Jacob Elordi’s devastating portrayal of The Creature. The way he’s able to capture wonder or loneliness on screen is imposing. Feeling someone’s rage against a father and a world that doesn’t want him, and seeking solace in companionship, will resonate with many audiences. That’s the issue, though, that even with Elordi’s excellent performance, it all feels one-dimensional, like most of the cast. Misunderstood creature, mad vengeful scientist, woman who finds humanity within a creature where no one else does, and mad capitalist that’s not in it for the sake of science but for their own personal gains, all have been done before and by GDL himself! The themes of Frankenstein don’t just break down into ‘man is the true evil,’ but also the role of the father figure, hyper-masculinity, and man’s relationship to science, which can lead to our creations becoming something else entirely or getting out of control. All of these elements can be seen within the film, but I’m unsure if any offer a deep new layer or add to anything already done before. The result is a straightforward by-the-books adaptation of Shelley’s work, which is fine, but that’s all it is. Just fine.

The film’s focus also lingers way too long on Victor’s life at the beginning, and the movie doesn’t even feel like it starts until about halfway through. I couldn’t emotionally connect with any of the relationships by the end, outside of Elordi’s quest for humanity and his desire to find some salvation. Outside of that, I think I found myself bored mainly by GDL, where it all just felt like the surface-level adaptation that’s plagued by fluff. Nothing we haven’t seen before. I hope GDL has gotten this out of his system, and we can get back to our regularly scheduled banger from the man.

Final Score: 5/10

Written by Kevin J. Pettit