Victor Frankenstein (2015)

Victor Frankenstein (2015)

6/10

 

Starring

Daniel Radcliffe

James McAvoy

Jessica Brown Findlay

Andrew Scott

 

Directed by Paul McGuigan

 

This movie is a sci-fi fantasy based on a contemporary adaptation of Mary Shelley's 1818 book Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus.

It’s a bizarre idea trotting down a new path, deciding not to focus on what we all look forward to: Frankenstein’s monster. Instead, it gives us the drama before the creation, the lives affected along the way, and the changes that obsession can cause. I see many reviewers complain about the missed opportunity because, in the last moments of the film, the monster is created, and it turns out to be a zombie. We get to see the monster for like 5 minutes, and it wants to kill everyone before it, acting on animal instincts rather than anything intelligent. Victor’s experience of this sort of behavior happened earlier in the movie when he wanted to save a creature he created, regardless of the lives it would have killed. This time, his life was on the line, and what people saw as a missed opportunity, I saw as a certain realism. Who wouldn’t try to save his own life when the thing you created refuses to reason and wants to take your life?

The characters and their written actions in this movie, I feel, were a hit too many in the re-imagining of this story. The movie was written to have a gloom cloud hanging over it.

The movie sets this tone right from the start. Igor (Daniel Radcliffe) is seen as a hunchback who works in a circus. This hunchback has a thing for human anatomy and has read so much that he could be looked upon as a physician. He is, however, mistreated in the circus in many gruesome ways. He is made to act as a clown, sometimes thrown into a cage, and treated like property. Victor Frankenstein (James McAvoy) comes to his rescue from the circus after witnessing Igor perform some sort of medical genius when a lady fell from the trapeze. You’d think the cruel mistreatment would end, but Victor, though miles better in his treatment of Igor, still carries an air of gloom throughout. When things seem to lighten, for example, Igor meeting someone and growing towards being a better version of himself, something dark happens. This either sidelines his feelings for Victor’s own purposes or results in some incident that deepens his gloom.

The romantic subplot in Igor’s life wasn’t well crafted. I feel they should have just left romance out of this entirely. But then, I guess they wanted Igor to have an ending that had nothing to do with Victor.

Victor, on the other hand, after creating his first monster, which he tried to save but then had to kill, does this in front of a man who he wanted some form of sponsorship from. The man agrees to sponsor their work, so Victor and Igor can create a man.

Chasing this duo is an officer, a man who is so religious that he figures out Victor’s plans in the most unrealistic genius way. There were no clues or anything solid enough for anyone in his shoes to have put this together. But this man, thanks to some divine intervention, does.

He is after the two because he knows what they are up to and wants to stop them, as it is against God’s will.

The movie is a nice one to see, in my opinion, except for the shortcomings here and there.