Frankenstein

Written by Steph Lady and Frank Darabont (who later disowned this film) and ambitiously directed by Kenneth Branagh, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is a likable film which succeeds mostly in a refreshingly old-fashioned, Hammeresque vein. (I think Christopher Lee hated this movie and equally class-dripping Bram Stoker's Dracula because he felt that they were competing in the same area.) There's the classic monsters (Robert DeNiro!), the period sets, the lovely heroines in the lovely period costumes, the beautiful and suitably turbulent score... Certainly not a perfect film, but as a classy, gorgeous monster movie, it is a woefully underrated one.

In 1992 we got a romanticized version of Dracula. It seems that its success brought two like-minded movies in 1994: "Wolf" and "Mary Shelley's Frankenstein." Neither of them reached the acclaim level of "Bram Stokers' Dracula."

"Frankenstein" seemed too rushed. It was a big expensive production with a more than adequate budget. It had the look and feel as if they had to cut down a three hour movie to two. Things developed too quickly which made the key characters seem as though they were overly emotional and driven without a substantial motive.

All the proper elements were there for the movie to be as good as "Dracula": the budget, the cast, the set, and the story. If they could've slowed things down just a tad then the movie would've been so much better.

I nearly spit out my teeth when I saw how low Frankenstein (94) score was. This film is quite simply spectacular! It goes in the same category as From Hell, they are both too sophisticated and beautiful to be JUST horror films. The cleverness of this film and its sheer radiance must throw some people off. Robert De Niro is the creature! De Niro gives the foul beast a soul of his own. De Niro's performance brings out genuine pity, sorrow, and most importantly, fear. Kenneth Branagh has always added a bit of class to his films, and his version of Frankenstein is no different. A visually brilliant triumph as a director.

... Francis Coppola's hit with Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992), and which sank quickly at the theaters for not following in its parent's footsteps--Coppola had other projects, tried to give it to another director, and ended up with one of Kenneth Branagh's first few attempts at non-Shakespeare movies, which Coppola later tried to distance himself from. It's also one of the most omnipresent of the Sony/Columbia Orphans, just about every-darn-where on streaming (if your service has "Gattaca", "Fifth Element", "Resident Evil", "Last Action Hero", "Seventh Voyage of Sinbad" and "Dracula", rest assured this one will be nearby), and I'd thought I should finally get around to streaming it just to be curious about why it hadn't lived up to its pedigree in the theaters.

It's actually not bad, now that we know what to expect: Branagh's since moved away from Shakespeare (after "Hamlet", he could never get another one back in theaters), and now specializes in gloriously overproduced period epics with costume/production-design abandon. Back in 1994, we didn't think of Ken as "the director of Marvel's Thor and Disney's live-action Cinderella", but now that we do, it's a full-tilt exercise in period-production budget. Like Coppola's film, the idea was to (claim to) go back and explore the themes of the original novel, and Ken's performance and Frank Darabont's script does a good job with that, showing Victor Frankenstein as a privileged rich-kid medical student destroying everything for his one personal obsession, in a Regency-steampunk lab powered by electric eels instead of Universal-Horror lightning. Robert DeNiro is intended to play the monster, and does a good job with the book's idea of a verbose creature who questions his own existence, but he's playing it a little too DeNiro--With just a few stitch-scars and a big cloak, he comes off not so much as an unearthly creation, but more like the escaped criminal that Pip met at the beginning of "Great Expectations".

It's good viewing if you take the movie at its own face value--There's one scene that deliberately tries to copy Coppola's abstract, dreamlike "Dracula" style, presumably to give in to Francis's complaints, and it sticks out from the rest of the movie like a sore thumb. The movie goes at Branagh's own wildly enthusiastic cosplay pace, and like his Hamlet movie, Ken's default style seems to be, when in doubt, shoot the scene Big. The story's attempt to top itself at every plot point does start going a little overwrought by the climax, but we realize that while he may not have made a Coppola followup, what he's done is create the world's most expensive Hammer film...Which is not always a bad thing.

While many people seem to scorn this film, I found it wonderfully enjoyable. Like the great Orson Welles, He stars in, and directs, many of his movies. This one in particular shows some of his more excentric, if not marketable, passions in filmmaking that make movie buffs and connaisseurs alike enjoy this stylized and emotional film.

Yes, it is melodramatic. Yes, the acting is often over the top. But what many critics of this film fail to recognize is that this is precisly the point. By staying very true to the source material(until the Elizabeth thing) and the significant changes that WERE made are clear evidence of this. The book was melodramatic. What Kenneth Branagh does here is stay true to the spirit of the classic gothic novel. The great close-ups define the characters, and through them you can understand them. Do not mistake stylization for poor film-making, because this is a wonderfully made and presented film, that if understood captivates you from the first spoken words(a quote from Mary Shelly, setting up the stylization) to the last frame.

Know what you're getting into, a passionatly made film about what drives one to both excel and what drives one to madness, and the dangers of excess beyond reason. If you have read the book, regardless of whether you liked it or not,see this movie. You will love what they have retained, and will embrace what they've changed. this is not a film(not a movie, a film) for everyone. But for those who are willing to have an open mind, it is pure bliss!