By Erin Ratigan/tr news editor
Stuart Beattie’s film I, Frankenstein follows the life of Victor Frankenstein’s monster 200 years after he killed Frankenstein and his wife.
Based on Kevin Grevioux’s graphic novel, it is set in an unnamed dystopian city that is the setting of a hidden war between demons and gargoyles.
It is also terrible.
The film opens with the monster (Aaron Eckhart) giving a summary of his life up to this point. While digging his master’s grave, he is kidnapped and forced to take sides in this war. Things become more complicated when demon prince Naberius (Bill Nighy) gets ahold of Dr. Frankenstein’s scientific journal.
After that, there is no plot.
From the first scene, the filmmakers clearly were not invested in the storyline. His summary is so rushed it feels as if they wanted to get the exposition over with as quickly as possible. What results is a character that viewers can’t understand.
Then the fighting begins, leaving viewers with less than a minute to warm up to him.
The animation has both good and bad moments. There are some cool parts where the gargoyles come to life, but at several points, the demons’ faces look cartoonish and silly. On top of that, the fighting was clearly intended for 3-D viewing and gimmicky at best.
Once he has been kidnapped, Leonore, the high queen of the gargoyle order, wants the monster kept alive so that he can help them win the war. To win him over, she names him Adam. But it is debatable whether the gargoyles are good or evil, and the movie has no clarification until the last 15 minutes.
Another issue is the lack of character development. No one, other than Adam, has any complexity. What little depth Adam has is because he is described in the first half of the film as being soulless.
But wouldn’t that make him impossible to relate to? Yes.
Then that element of complexity is brushed off in the last fight scene, where Naberius exclaims, “You do have a soul!” What? When did that happen?
Also, how does Terra (Yvonne Strahovski), a world-renowned electrophysiologist, get away with wearing shorts and moccasins in the lab? What if she spills some sort of flesh-eating bacteria on herself?
A few stitches and scars does not a monster make. Eckhart cast as a monster is baffling. The reason behind his casting was most likely to justify his five minutes of shirtlessness (admittedly, the high point of the film).
But the worst part was the ending, where Adam utters the words, “I, Frankenstein.”
Thank you for clarifying. The audience might have forgotten what they were watching.
Ultimately, there is something sad about this film, like even its creators didn’t want to see this monster come to life.
