536: Victor Frankenstein

[00:00:04] It's directed by Paul McGuigan, stars Daniel Radcliffe, James McAvoy, Jessica Brown-Finley, Andrew Scott, Callum Turner.

[00:00:19] And the synopsis is,

[00:00:41] Well, I saw this one I remember back in college when it came out in theaters.

[00:00:48] I am a bit of a sucker for these classic horror stories, monster stories, Frankenstein, Dracula, that kind of thing.

[00:00:58] I've seen it three times now, I think.

[00:01:02] I know now that it got pretty poor reviews.

[00:01:07] I don't know why it's so hard to get these movies right. Like there's not many good ones.

[00:01:12] I think this one is pretty serviceable. It's entertaining enough.

[00:01:19] One of the things that I liked right off the bat that I didn't know at first was the perspective from Igor.

[00:01:26] Where you meet him and he's this circus assistant, I guess, and terribly mistreated.

[00:01:34] And then suddenly Frankenstein shows up at the circus one day, helps him get out.

[00:01:39] And then there's that twist on how he became Igor or got the name at least.

[00:01:47] I read the book a long, long time ago.

[00:01:50] So I know a lot of this is not exactly true.

[00:01:52] But in the context of this movie, I like how they show Frankenstein helping Igor and realizing that his hunchback is just a massive cyst, I guess, filled with fluid.

[00:02:06] And that's caused him to hunch over because of the pressure on his body and his spine.

[00:02:11] Then there's the really disgusting scene of the cyst being drained and all the white pus coming out.

[00:02:21] But that allows Daniel Radcliffe to walk upright.

[00:02:25] And then Frankenstein puts the brace around his torso so he can correct his skeletal system.

[00:02:34] And at the time, Daniel Radcliffe didn't have a name because he was just this circus freak as people saw him.

[00:02:42] So then Frankenstein says, hey, I have this very absent roommate named Igor.

[00:02:48] He's never around.

[00:02:49] You can be Igor from now on.

[00:02:53] I think that's pretty clever.

[00:02:55] Like I thought that was creative.

[00:02:57] While there's nothing incredibly emotional about the movie, I thought that was touching.

[00:03:03] And Daniel Radcliffe really sells that redemption, that rebirth.

[00:03:09] Having been stuck in the circus his whole life, being thrown away.

[00:03:13] And then he gets to enter society and explore London for the first time and feel cared for.

[00:03:19] And his scientific and medical knowledge be appreciated.

[00:03:28] I also didn't know until this time that it was directed by Paul McGuigan, who directed some episodes of Sherlock with Benedict Cumberbatch.

[00:03:38] He did A Study in Pink, the first episode.

[00:03:41] And then he also did The Hounds of Baskerville, which are two of the best episodes of the whole show, in my opinion.

[00:03:48] Watching it now, it's pretty obvious that someone involved in that show did this movie because there's many sequences when they superimpose a skeletal system with effects over a body.

[00:04:05] Or there's the very sharp, quick medical scientific monologues by the two leads saying, oh, we need to do this.

[00:04:13] Oh, if we don't unblock this, she's going to die.

[00:04:15] This, that, the other.

[00:04:16] It felt very Holmes and Watson.

[00:04:19] Not really in a bad way.

[00:04:20] I mean, it's maybe a little unoriginal, but I think the two leads have a lot of charisma.

[00:04:25] There's a bit of a bromance.

[00:04:29] It even seems a little reminiscent of the Robert Downey Jr. Sherlock Holmes films.

[00:04:37] Mainly in that, and I don't really like this that much.

[00:04:40] They feel the need to make Frankenstein out to be some sort of, maybe not an action hero, but way more physical than you would think.

[00:04:51] I don't inherently hate that, but it feels unnecessary and it feels not really...

[00:04:57] It's fine if you want to reinvent the character, but I personally at least did not need that in this movie to be engaged.

[00:05:05] Some other decent notes.

[00:05:10] It's shot really well.

[00:05:12] It looks great.

[00:05:13] There's some good color, but there's also good use of shadow and darkness in the lighting.

[00:05:20] The effects overall look pretty good.

[00:05:24] The production and costume design is very strong.

[00:05:28] I know the budget was around $40 million, so they definitely had a lot of funds to make this world very fleshed out and detailed.

[00:05:36] James McAvoy is excellent, as always.

[00:05:43] I always do appreciate movies that, even if it's not a home run, I appreciate movies like this that focus on characters who cherish intelligence and they pursue science and discovery.

[00:05:56] We need more of those, especially nowadays, so I always will have a soft spot for films that try and do that, at least.

[00:06:08] There are points in the middle of the movie, though, that maybe don't get boring.

[00:06:13] Like, I'm never bored.

[00:06:14] I can say that.

[00:06:15] I'm always somewhat interested, but there are parts in the second act that go on maybe a little too long, become a little too flat, maybe a little repetitive.

[00:06:26] A lot of the stuff with the cops investigating Frankenstein, as much as I love Andrew Scott, there's just not that much to grab onto there.

[00:06:37] It's a fairly generic investigation subplot.

[00:06:41] So when it veers off of the Frankenstein's monster creation, and all that stuff is interesting when they're drawing the body on the floor with chalk and they're trying to figure out, alright, what organs do we need?

[00:06:56] What are we gonna do for this?

[00:06:57] What electricity, etc.?

[00:06:58] I think all that's interesting, but when it focuses on something else, I lose a little bit of engagement.

[00:07:05] The third act would definitely be the worst part.

[00:07:11] It just becomes so big, so insane, so CGI heavy that I'm just ready for it to be over at that point.

[00:07:18] I mean, a lot of the character work is thrown away, and perhaps considering Paul McGuigan's focus more in television, maybe he just wasn't the right person to handle this sort of ending.

[00:07:35] Or possibly considering who wrote it, Max Landis, his scripts are in general not great, so maybe the script could have used a few more run-throughs with other people.

[00:07:50] The sequence at the school with Frankenstein and Igor showing the undead monkey coming back to life.

[00:08:00] I like the, not really suspense of that, because you know it's gonna come alive at some point, but I wish they had done a little bit more with that.

[00:08:10] I know that the PG-13 rating holds it back.

[00:08:14] I'd say almost all Frankenstein movies should be R-rated, considering the source material and what you're dealing with.

[00:08:22] That's why a show like Penny Dreadful, a very underrated show, is able to showcase all of the signature graphic Frankenstein-isms.

[00:08:34] As well as poor things, the Yorgos Lanthimos movie, which is easily the best Frankenstein-esque movie that we've had in decades.

[00:08:48] If you like period pieces, if you like weird, unexpected origin stories, the whole, you've never heard this story before, that kind of thing, you may want to give this one a shot.

[00:09:00] I just wish it was better, because I think it could be fantastic.

[00:09:05] You just need especially the right script for this kind of story that's so classical and there's not a lot of big surprises.

[00:09:14] You really need to enrich the writing with a lot more wow moments, deeper moments, more thought-provoking concepts.

[00:09:26] That one is a heavy three out of five.

[00:09:29] That one is a heavy four.

[00:09:29] This is a heavy one.

[00:09:30] A huge amount of people.

[00:09:30] Thank you.