When I decided to do the October creature feature marathon, I already knew that the third film would be a Frankenstein film. The problem was deciding which film to review, the 1910 silent film or the 1994 Kenneth Branagh version. However, the only reason I was considering the 1910 movie was because of the novelties that it was the first ever Frankenstein movie and it was produced by Thomas Edison (yes THAT Thomas Edison). Frankly, silent films aren’t my bag, so I decided to review what is considered “the most faithful feature film adaptation” of the Mary Shelley Novel. (The 2004 Hallmark TV miniseries is usually considered the most faithful adaptation). If you want to see the 1910 film you can watch it here.

The movie starts out in 1794 in the Arctic Sea on a ship captained by Robert Walton, an explorer obsessed with reaching the North Pole. After the ship gets stuck in ice, the crew runs into a man half-dead and partially delirious named Victor Frankenstein. As Frankenstein starts to recover from his exertion he sees in Walton the same over-ambitiousness and recounts the story of his life’s miseries to Walton as a warning.

If you are looking for a horror or horror-comedy film, then this version of Frankenstein is not for you. This film is more of a period piece sprinkled with some science fiction, a Gothic melodrama-cautionary tale about the dark side of obsession and judgment. To be honest, even though it didn’t receive the best reviews, I had somewhat high hopes for the film due to praise it received from people whose opinions I trust and respect. Sadly, I was left a little underwhelmed. Surprisingly, I feel that most of the blame belongs to Kenneth Branagh as both an actor and director.

This film boasts an incredible cast of critically acclaimed actors, but two of them stand out above the rest. The first is John Cleese. He is absolutely brilliant (and frankly unrecognizable) as Frankenstein’s mentor, Professor Waldman. If anyone reading this review knows of another drama where John Cleese plays a very straight role, please leave a comment as I’d love to see more performances like this from him.

The other is a standout performance by Robert De Niro. Bob (as his friends call him) is amazing as the Frankenstein monster. If you were to put together a movie collection of De Niro’s greatest performances I’d say that this film is a must have.

Sadly, De Niro’s performance as “The Creature” makes the flaws in Branagh’s portrayal of Victor Frankenstein much more apparent. I must give him credit, during the scenes at the University of Ingolstadt when researching and working on creating the creature (as the monster is called in the movie credits) Branagh has this very intense gaze that makes Victor look like a man possessed. If only he could have delivered his lines half as well. Any line of dialog from Victor that didn’t require a decent amount of subtlety was almost always over the top, hammy and frankly unbelievable. More than once his bad acting managed to pull me out of the movie. It is very hard to buy into a film when the character who is supposed to be most of the movie’s driving force in both narrative and emotion is very poorly acted. I was shocked to see that poor a performance by such a critically acclaimed actor.

While the film itself looks beautiful, the pacing is all over the map. There are quite a few scenes that should have been shortened (or frankly, removed). The best example is the creation of the creature. The beauty and power of this scene is undercut by the sequence afterwards of Victor and the creature slipping around in a protoplasmic fluid for an uncomfortably long time. Sadly, Frankenstein feels like an overambitious and uneven project that would be pretty unspectacular if not for a few patches of sheer brilliance here and there.

Rating: Matinee

If you go in with low expectations and don’t have much of a problem with Branagh’s bad acting you’ll probably enjoy it

Fun Factor: 65%

Sincerely, THE Brian